


Fever Dreams

by Bazzle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Child Abuse, Consensual Violence, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Rape, Rape Recovery, Sibling Incest, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazzle/pseuds/Bazzle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't know where Sam goes after school or why he's lying to him about it. When it all goes to hell and he lets Sam get hurt in the most unforgivable way, Dean gives every part of himself to bring Sam back to himself. (Sam 13, Dean 17)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note, the scenes between Sam and his Counsellor are Dialogue only and will stay that way because I just didn't have it in me to write anything graphic when their relationship turns abusive. All the normal prose is from Dean's POV. These warnings apply to the fic in its entirety as opposed to this chapter in particular. As you can probably tell 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Rape of a child by an adult in a position of authority, sexualized fantasies of violence/choking, Sibling Incest both consensual and dub-con.

 

* * *

The First Session

* * *

“Pretty gloomy for counseling...”

“I know, I’ve been trying to get a new office for years. I feel like I’m in a dungeon down here... please, take a seat.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m Doctor Wheston.”

“I’m Sam.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Sam.”

“You too.”

"I've got your file here. I guess we can start with the basics... You’re in eighth grade, you’re an excellent student- straight A’s?”

“Usually.”

“I see a whole lot of A’s on this sheet... but your record says you’ve had some brush-ups in the past.”

“Yeah...”

“A few fights, several unexplained absences... but nothing ever seems to interfere with your schoolwork.”

“I try to keep my school work up.”

“No explanations for the other issues?”

“...”

“I guess not... So, what brings you here today, Sam?”

“Ha... uhh...”

“Sorry, that was a little broad for starters.”

"No, it's just... a lot of reasons I guess."

"That's okay, we'll get to all of them... Your file says that you only moved here a week ago. Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’d you move from?”

“... Arkansas.”

“You sound unsure.”

“I’m not.”

“... okay.”

“...”

“Why did you move?”

“My dad works in a lot of different places.”

“What kind of work?”

“...”

“Well, this is as good a time as any for me to say this. I want to make it clear that you don’t have to answer any questions you’re not comfortable with. My job here is to help you try to find some peace of mind, and that won’t happen if you answer anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

“...okay.”

“So Dad works. What about Mom?”

“Dead.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that... when did it happen?”

“When I was a baby.”

“Wow, Sam... that’s horrible.”

“It’s easier for me... I don’t remember her.”

“You have siblings then?”

“... I have a brother, Dean.”

“Are you close?”

“...”

* * *

He’s reading a magazine with his feet on the kitchen table while he waits for Sam to get home. He’s late and Dean’s not going to worry yet, but he would be lying if he wasn’t always a little too protective when they moved to a new town. The first few days were always the worst, usually when Dean knew whether or not they were going to have any trouble for their stay or if they’d be able to fly under the radar until they were packing up again. If the kids in the Middle School were anything like the High Schoolers, then they seemed to be a pretty mellow crowd... a little uppety maybe, but so far Dean actually liked the school district and some of the people he’d met.

The town is freezing as hell. It's February, and they were stuck in Vermont while their father tracked down a pack ofsomethings over the Canadian border with Caleb. As far as their usual rentals go though, this one is pretty okay. They each have their own room and the TV has cable for once. Dean has managed to figure out the trick to getting the stove to light and the beds aren’t half as hard as the motel they’d been staying in before they came out here. Plus the heater hasn’t crapped out once so far despite the biting cold that doesn't want to quit.

Finally, there’s the sound of footsteps on the porch and Dean relaxes.

“You’re late,” Dean says when he sees Sam walk through the door. 

“So?” Sam says.

There’s that sharpness in his voice that has been a constant presence these days, and it puts Dean on edge. Dad calls it hormones, Dean calls it Sam being a bitch. It’s like Sam’s constantly trying to keep him on the verge of a fight, like he’s just itching for it. Half the time, Dean gives in, too. He almost always regrets it afterwards, but Sam drags him into shouting matches almost as often as he does to Dad these days.

“Where were you?” Dean asks, pushing that irritation to the back of his mind and trying to keep his tone light.

"One of the teacher's made me stay after because I'm behind...” Sam says dropping his backpack on a kitchen chair, hanging his heavy winter jacket on the back of it and sitting himself in another.

Dean looks up at that. "Did I hear that right?" Dean says. His tone is teasing but he's actually a little alarmed, "Sam Winchester behind in school work? Miracles do happen."

“This school does World History in eighth grade, not U.S.”

Dean puts his magazine down and looks at him hard, and if Sam notices he doesn’t react. “You’ve learned all that before though,” Dean says in an easy tone, but the idea of Sam needing extra help has him alert. Sam has never stayed after school involuntarily except for a couple of detentions he managed a couple towns back in a school district with a very serious attendance policy. “Hungry?” he asks.

“No,” Sam says, still in that voice that feels like a challenge, and Dean hates it. He hates that this is how it has been for months now. Even when they’re just talking, Dean feels like they’re fighting, “And I’ve never learned it at this level before.”

Dean drops the subject and pushes a bag of potato chips towards Sam as he heads into the living room. He flips the television on and listens to Sam open the bag of potato chips behind him. It’s not that he’s suspicious, it’s just that this is a first, Sam being obligated to do schoolwork rather than just volunteering, and Dean wasn’t comfortable with things he didn’t know. 

* * *

 Session 3

* * *

“I promise you, Sam... completely confidential.”

“I know... I’m just... I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be sorry. Please, take your time.”

“It’s just... I’ve never said it out loud...”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“...”

“Sam, this is only our third session. We have plenty of time for you to open up about certain things if you don’t want to address them yet.”

“This is the reason I’m here, though... the whole reason. I need to... I just need to say it.”

“Okay, Sam.”

“... I think that... I think that I’m in love with my brother...”

“...”

“Oh my god...”

“Sam! It’s fine, please sit back down... you’re fine.”

“I can’t believe... such a fucking...”

“You need to sit down and breathe... please.”

“...”

“Here, drink this.”

“...”

“That’s a pretty big confession, Sam.”

“...”

“How long have you felt this way?”

“A long time.”

“What makes you so sure that you’re in love with Dean?”

“God... I can’t... can I leave?”

“Of course you can, I just want you to know before you go that everything you’re feeling is normal. You’re not a freak and you’re not a monster for this. You can’t help how you feel... remember that.”

“...”

“Will I be seeing you again?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay... if you ever need to talk, my door is always open.”

“Okay... thank you.”

“I hope to see you soon, Sam.”

* * *

“What happened?” Dean hears the command in his voice and wants to cringe away from it, the same way he can tell Sam wants to hide his eyes from Dean’s prying gaze.

“Nothing,” Sam says, brushing past him with a sniff.

It hurts. He fucking hates himself for how much he hates it when Sam ignores him. He shouldn’t care, but he does. He tries not to blame himself for how he constantly finds himself orbiting his little brother, but it’s a pull he can’t resist. Feed him, take care of him, protect him, love him, then start that process all over again. That was the only real routine that Dean could count on, and he was realizing rapidly that he depended on it right as his brother, it seemed, was determined to spiral out of their system. It was breaking Dean's fucking heart.

“Yeah, bullshit,” Dean can’t decide if he was going for casual or accusing, so the genuine concern is what his voice lands in.

“Dean, I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam says, and he tries to walk past Dean, but Dean grabs his arm and turns him around. Sam lets out a huff of surprise and he stares at Dean’s hand until Dean grabs his other arm and turns him so he’s forced to look up.

“Someone picking on you?”

Dean knows he’s staring too hard at Sam’s puffy eyes and the color in his cheeks, and he wonders if that’s why Sam looks like he’s been caught, deer in the headlights. Dean doesn’t know why but he squeezes a little tighter and Sam’s breath catches in his throat. Sam’s eyes fall where Dean’s fingers are digging into his skinny arms. Dean feels a shock of excitement at that which makes him drop Sam’s arms like they burned him. Confused and angry, he forces his features into something a little less intense.

“Why have you been crying?” he asks, and he sounds like himself again, even if he doesn’t quite feel like it.

Sam shakes his head, and smiles, “Only bitches cry, Dean. It’s just allergies.”

And with that he brushes past him into his bedroom where Dean watches him pull school books out of his bag. He opens one up and starts to read, and Dean realizes he’s been watching too long, so he turns back, no idea what was going on. It hurt like hell to know something was wrong and his brother was pointedly keeping it from him.

* * *

Session 4

* * *

 “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah...”

“I’m happy you decided to come back, Sam. I truly am.”

“You haven’t told anyone...”

“No, of course not. Anything that comes between you and I stays in this room, no matter what.”

“Okay.”

“How are you feeling now that you’ve said it out loud?”

“Better.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah... I... It’s a relief, you know?”

“Absolutely.”

“I think that I was afraid... it felt like if I let myself believe it or admit it, he would know... he always knows what I’m thinking... but I think I’m more comfortable now.”

“That’s good... that’s great, actually... I’m so glad you decided to come to me, Sam.”

“Me too...”

“You don’t think he suspects anything?”

“No. I don’t think the thought could even register.”

“I have a question that I have to ask, Sam...”

“... okay.”

“I have to ask because these feelings you’re having are often a result of this... but has your brother ever touched you in a sexual way?”

“No! No no no... God, no.”

“Remember, you don’t have to protect anyone in this room. It’s confidential.”

“I’m not protecting him.”

“Even when you were younger? Even if he didn’t mean it to hurt you?”

“He wouldn’t ever.”

“Why is that?”

“Because... that’s what he does. Protects me. Does what’s best for me. He wouldn’t ever hurt me.”

“And you like that?”

“What?”

“Do you like that he protects you like that?”

“...”

“Does it makes you feel young? Does his behavior make you feel inferior when you’d rather be his equal?”

“It’s not that... not exactly... Sometimes... sometimes I think that all he can see me as is the baby he dragged out of a burning house 13 years ago.”

“... what?”

“...”

“Your house burned down?”

“Yeah...”

“How old were you?”

“I was a baby... 6 months...”

“I see.” 

“It’s... that’s the night my mother died...”

“How old was Dean when he saved you?”

“Four.”

“Wow... Do you want to tell me about it, Sam?”

* * *

“Hey there sunshine,” Dean says when Sam comes in with a smile on his face, and he’s making fun of him, but Sam’s easy smile actually lights something in Dean as well, “What are you so thrilled about?”

“Nothing,” Sam says lightly, “Just a nice day.”

It was a nice day. One of those bright winter afternoons that made the snow a blinding white, but Dean can’t help but eye Sam while he sticks his head in the fridge. When he pulls out the orange juice, he shakes the bottle at Dean, “Want some?”

“No, I’m good,” Dean says warily, over-analyzing Sam’s posture and expression while he tries to keep his own features normal.

“You have a good day?” Sam asks. He’s staring out the window at their tiny backyard, the white light making his face glow.

“That’s my line,” Dean says.

Sam smiles, and turns to him then, and Dean feels a rush of momentary relief when his eyes are on him. _Finally_ , Dean thinks and he feels pathetic for it, _Fucking finally._ It registers then that it doesn't feel like Sam's looked at him or smiled at him in weeks, maybe even months, but now he looks... he just looks happy, and it’s sad that it freaks Dean out, but he’s grown so used to his time-worn expression of frustration, sadness, or resignation. He looks content, and Dean knows he’s not the one who made him feel that way. He wonders if that’s the problem.

When Sam raises an eyebrow in his direction, Dean says, “It was fine. Fine classes at a fine school on a fine day. Happy now?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. And he looks happy.

* * *

Session 6

* * *

“A couple sessions ago you said that you are worried your brother treats you like a baby.”

“He doesn’t treat me like a baby... it’s just that I’m his responsibility. He’s basically had the responsibilities of a parent since he was a kid. He kind of... gave up his childhood so I could have one.”

“He sounds like a pretty amazing brother.”

“He is... although he’s more like a... mother-father-brother combo.”

"Really? How so?"

"Well... it's just been us for most of our lives, so he did all the things parents do, you know?"

"Like what?"

"You know... Dad says he taught me to walk and talk because Dad still was still so messed up after the fire. When I was younger I'd go to him if I had questions or nightmares. He does the shopping and the cooking and pretty much takes care of me... and my Dad too."

“Do you ever wish he wasn’t your family because of how you feel about him?”

“No.”

“That was an easy answer.”

“It was an easy question.”

“You’ve never wished that?”

“Never. Dean’s all I have. He’s my family. He’s just... he’s everything.”

* * *

When Dean drops his hand on Sam’s forehead, Sam swats it away with a barely concealed grin.

“What’re you doing freak?” Sam asks.

“Checking for a fever,” Dean says lightly while pinning Sam’s hand with a knee and grabbing at the other one. He puts his own on Sam’s forehead again.

“What?” Sam laughs, trying to pry his hand out of Dean’s grip, “Why?”

“Because you’re obviously sick,” Dean says with a glint in his eye, “I’ve never seen you smile this many days in a row... I’m missing your bitchy streak.”

“Whatever, Dean,” Sam says before prying his hand out of Dean’s grip, bending Dean’s thumb in the process, and he slaps Dean across the face just hard enough to goad him into a fight.

“Bitch!” Dean says in shock and he’s on top of Sam in a second. And it’s easy from there. Dean relishes the simplicity of the fight. It’s easier than the eye contact that lasts too long and tells him too little, the words passed back and forth that mean nothing. For the first time in a long time, he knows exactly what Sam is going to do.

Sam goes for the knee, like Dean knows he will, and flips him on his back. Dean closes his leg on Sam’s foot though, knocking Sam’s balance when he tries to pull away while Dean snakes an arm around Sam’s back and topples them both off the couch in a pile of limbs.

The fight gets dirty then and Dean isn’t proud to say some hair-pulling was involved, but finally he gets Sam on his back. He’s pinned Sam’s thighs down with his own and Sam’s hands are gripped above his head in one of Dean’s fists. 

“Dean!” Sam whines, moving restlessly underneath him.

“Winchesters don’t bitch-slap,” Dean says, with a grin, but punctuates his comment by slapping Sam across the face.

It’s not a hard slap, not at all, but the reaction has Dean doing a double-take. Sam flinches violently when Dean’s hand hits his cheek. The second the hit lands, Sam goes completely limp underneath him, eyes closed and breathing heavy.

“Sammy?” Dean asks, and he immediately brings his hand up to where he had just slapped him, trying not to wonder at the fact that his instinct isn’t to make fun of the reaction.

When Dean rests his hand on Sam’s cheek, Sam opens his eyes and there’s heat in his expression that makes Dean’s brain come to a stand-still and his heart go into overdrive. He can’t look away from that expression that makes his stomach twist in unfamiliar ways. Was it anger? Hatred?

“Get off of me, Dean,” Sam says then, turning his face to try to escape Dean’s gentle touch. He doesn’t sound like he’s having fun anymore. There was no trace of the smile that had been plastered on Sam’s face in various forms for the past week.

Dean remembers how to move then. He pulls himself off of Sam and drops his hands. He watches as Sam stands up and walks to their bedroom, not a passing glance at Dean who is still kneeling on the ground, confused. The door slams shut behind him and Dean feels his body flinch at the sound.

He lies awake for far too long that night, mind replaying the end of the fight over and over again. They’ve fought before. In fact they fight constantly. They’re brothers and they live inside a very narrow universe that pretty much just includes them. But he’s never seen that look on Sam’s face, and it scares the hell out of him.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 Session 10

* * *

“Can I ask you a hypothetical question, Sam?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“What do you think would happen if you told your brother outright?”

“Ha... uhh... I think he would probably die of shock before spraying me with holy water.”

“If he had some on hand, maybe.”

“...”

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing... sorry...”

“Have you ever imagined a situation where he reciprocates your feelings?”

“I try not to.”

“But you do.”

“I have.”

“Have you envisioned being sexual with your brother?”

“...”

“What do you think about when you masturbate?”

“What!?”

“Do you think about your brother when you touch yourself?”

“...”

“This is an open space, Sam... there’s no judgement when you’re sitting in that chair. This is just you and me.”

“I-”

“Take your time.”

“...”

“You’re blushing.”

“...”

“We can move on if you’d rather not talk about that just yet. Tell me more about the relationship your father and brother have.”

* * *

Sam comes into the house in a rush, even later than usual. 

“You’re still not caught up, man?” Dean asks, watching him carefully, not because he’s suspicious, just because that’s what he always does.

Sam stares at him confused, then there’s flicker of recognition and Dean’s heart _plummets_ through the floor. Sam composes himself and says, “It’s a years worth of history, Dean. Can’t learn it in two weeks.”

“Really?” Dean says, and his voice is harder than he wants it to be because he just realized his brother has been _lying_ to him for weeks. One flicker of doubt, a second’s hesitation, and Dean had caught him. “Because I’m pretty sure you learned the entire 6th grade curriculum in a month when we moved to that town that wanted to bump you a grade up.”

“That was summer, Dean,” Sam says. Dean is listening now and he hears it. Hears the perfect amount of ease Sam uses when speaking, “-I had time. This stuff is a lot harder too-” Dean hears every slip where the lie is suddenly loud and clear, “-I’m probably going to be after school every day for a while.”

_Gotten pretty good at lying, little bro,_ Dean thinks to himself as he watches Sam drop to sit next to him in front of the television, and he hates that he was the one who taught him.

“If you have so much work, why aren’t you doing it now?” Dean asks.

“Friday, Dean,” Sam counters, eyes on the TV.

“Oh...” Dean says.

“You don’t know the difference because you don’t do your work any day of the week,” Sam says, and it’s unclear if it’s a challenge or a tease.

“Geniuses don’t have to do homework,” Dean says with a cocky grin that Sam would see right through if he would just fucking _look_ at him. 

That’s all Dean does is watch Sam, but the kid can’t spare a goddamn second to look his way. He wants to shout at him, scream till he has to turn his head and tell him how selfish he can be sometimes... how self-centered... Dean does everything for him, and the kid still thinks he has the right to fucking _lie_ to him. 

But every time he practices the speech in his head, it’s his fathers voice he hears telling Sam to stop being a selfish child and man-up. Stop thinking about yourself and save lives. And he can’t be that to Sam... he just can’t.

“Yeah,” Sam says with a laugh, “Okay.”

* * *

 Session 12

* * *

“Has it ever occurred to you that Dean might figure it out?”

“All the time.”

“Does that scare you?”

“It terrifies me.”

“When are you most scared he’ll find out?”

“...”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Well... we share beds a lot... on the road so much... and then there’s sparring practice-”

“What?”

“Uh... Sparring.”

“You spar with your brother?”

“Yeah...”

“... hobby of yours?”

“No... our Dad was a marine and he’s very serious about us learning hand-to-hand combat.”

“Really?”

“It’s not serious... it’s just, you know, practice... I mean, we don’t hurt each other. Well, I will get a shot in if I can, but Dean would never hurt me.”

“You always say that.”

"What?"

"You always say that."

“Always say what?”

“You always say he would never hurt you.”

“... well... he wouldn’t.”

"Why are you fixated on that?"

"I don't think I am-"

“Do you want him to?”

"... what?"

"Do you want Dean to hurt you?"

“... I...”

“Sam... do you want your brother to hurt you?”

“...”

“We can move on-”

“-no wait.”

“... what is it, Sam?”

“... I... maybe..."

"... do you want to tell me about it?"

"... I have this dream.”

“Like a fantasy you mean?”

“No... no I mean a real dream..."

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“...in the dream, I wake up and... I’m always in some random motel bed... I wake up and he’s on top of me... and he’s got his hands around my throat... shit... I’m sorry, it’s just-”

“It’s okay, Sam... take your time.”

“... he’s just pressing me into the mattress and I can’t breathe... but I don’t want to... in the dream I always get mad at my body for trying to breathe... because I don’t want it to stop...”

“You have this dream often?”

“All the time...”

“How do you feel when you wake up?”

“... I’m always gasping... I didn’t know you could hold your breath in your sleep... and I’ve always already... you know...”

“You’ve always already come.”

“Uh... yeah...”

“Do you fantasize about him hurting you?”

“...yes.”

“Do you touch yourself while thinking about it?”

“... I...”

“Do you?”

“...”

“Sam.”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“What?”

* * *

Two weeks into living in the rental, Dean came home from another painfully boring school day to find John sitting at their kitchen table. They weren’t moving on apparently, but he’d be home for a few days at least to sort out some patterns and check on the boys before he went back to meet up with Caleb again. Dean was stupidly grateful for it, finding himself more and more lonely these days and grateful for the welcome distraction of a hunt, even if Dad wouldn't take him on this one. 

It’s not that he didn’t get to spend time with Sam. In fact, they’d had a pretty normal weekend by Winchester standards. Saturday they had done a good amount of training in the morning without Sam freaking out like he had on the floor last week. Sam had asked to go to a burger place in town and Dean was happy to oblige.

Dean had dropped Sam at a friends house after for the night, happy Sam had managed to make friends so quickly, while he went to a party at the head cheerleaders house. Dean always got invites to the girls parties. The guys usually didn’t like the look of him, and would try to keep him out of their living rooms and away from their girls on the weekends their parents were out. 

The next morning Dean had been unbelievably hungover and had forced Sam to drive him (underage didn’t really hold much meaning in the Winchester house) to a local diner where they spent far too much money on coffee, greasy bacon, eggs, french toast and an over-priced fruit plate Sam insisted they get. Then they’d snuck into the back of the local movie theater and caught the second half of Happy Gilmore, Dean always ignoring Sam's pointed looks when he laughed too loudly or chewed popcorn with his mouth full.

But despite all of that, despite the fact that they had spent the whole weekend together, he felt like he had been alone the whole time. The fact that he knew, that he fucking _knew_ without a doubt, that Sam was lying about something, hiding something from him... it made him feel like he was alone all the time now, even when Sam was sitting close enough on the couch that Dean could feel his body heat up and down his side. 

But even still, he couldn’t enjoy Sam’s look of dismay when his eyes fell on their father when he walked in the door, an hour later than he should have as usual. Their father had a map spread out over the table where Sam and Dean always ate dinner. He was pointing to several points on the map of the wilderness preserve to Dean, and looked up when he heard the door close.

“You’re late,” he said, “Is this when he normally gets back?”

The question is directed at Dean. He knows Sam hates when their father talks about Sam like he's not in the room, even though he has little sympathy for the kid right now. But even so, he does what he has to. He protects Sammy. He lies.

“He’s doing work with a teacher,” Dean says with trained ease, “Trying to catch up because they’re on a different schedule.”

Their father nods as some sign of recognition, no suspicion there, then continues explaining the pattern of locations to Dean.

Their father’s words are white noise now, because he just lied to his father about something Sam won’t even be honest about with him. He looks up, sure that the guilt for his own lie and the resentment for Sam is written all over his face, either unwilling or unable to hide it. So when he locks eyes with Sam across the room, Sam looks grateful for only a second, but then it shifts and Sam’s face falls, because he sees it then, sees it in Dean’s face. He sees that Dean knows he’s lying about something, and the silent message of _I know, and you know that I know_ passes between them.

But then Dean actually _looks_ at Sam, and suddenly he realizes that Sam looks shaky, and he wonders how he hadn’t noticed how pale he looks. Really pale... and he had sweat stains under his arms too. Dean’s head went into overdrive for a moment, wondering what on earth could have shaken Sam up that much. But his father drags him back with a- “Dean! Focus... lives at stake here...”

And when Sam goes to his room, he shuts the door quietly behind him.

* * *

 Session 13

* * *

“It’s not uncommon to make these sort of associations with sexual pleasure.”

“... okay.”

“What I should be asking is how you learned about sex... did your father explain it to you?”

“No.”

“What about friends?”

“Yeah... a little...”

“Dean, then...”

“... yeah.”

“And he did a good job explaining it?”

“Well... he was probably only like, eleven maybe, so yeah... not really the best source.”

“These kind of things happen, Sam... Sex is a really sensitive subject and when it isn’t handled well with children who are so impressionable, there tends to be a lot of disconnect between the reality of sex and the things the mind supplies to explain away things that they aren’t entirely comfortable with.”

“... so...”

“So you’re really only close with one other person in your life... and he’s not allowed to hurt you or touch you, and it makes sense that you’d associate that taboo with the taboo of sex.”

“...”

“Sam?”

“I don’t think it’s just sex.”

“You don’t?”

“No...”

“Do you have dreams where you’re kissing your brother?”

“No, but-”

“What about holding hands... going on dates?”

“Okay, okay, I get it... If it is just sex then, how do I fix it?”

“I think you need to have a healthy sexual experience in order to replace this fantasy in your mind.”

“... I...”

“Are you a virgin, Sam?”

“I... I don’t want...”

“It’s a simple question.”

“...”

“Sam.”

“Yes, of course I’m a virgin! I’m in the fucking 8th grade...”

“There’s no need for vulgarity, Sam. And you’d be surprised. Take yourself for example. You obviously have an overactive imagination and not only desire to engage in sexual activity-”

“-I don’t have a desire-”

“-but you are stimulated by the thought of your sexual partner hurting you... Not even mentioning that said sexual partner is your brother. That is a pretty heightened libido for a 13-year-old.”

“...”

* * *

They’re sitting on the couch in the pre-dawn haze, staring at the television that’s on mute so that they don’t wake up their father up. Schools closings and delays are scrolling past the bottom of the news channel where a pretty woman in a parka is gesturing towards the snowbanks behind her. They'd woken up to a fresh blanket of snow, and it had been Sam for once who was dragging them to the television to check for a snow-day.

_Eden Central School District- No Closings_

"Goddamnit," Sam says, and Dean sees that his fists are clenched while he stares at the television like he can will a snow-day into existence. 

"Keep your voice down," Dean whispers. He knows his dad is going back over the border in a couple days and he wants him to actually get some rest. “What’s got your panties in a twist,” Dean whispers. He’s not bothering to make it sound like a joke now. Ever since he had stopped having to put on a brave face and pretend he didn’t know his brother was lying to him, he had stopped bothering to hide his hostility. “You love school, nerd,” he says without any kind of affection.

Sam doesn't even acknowledge it. “Maybe...” Sam isn’t taking the bait, and that has Dean paying attention. He hasn't stopped staring at the television, “Maybe if we wait for the school to come back up... maybe they’re still deciding...”

“School’s not cancelled,” Dean says quietly, but firmly, “They know how to handle snow up here. Now go get dressed.”

He's about to head back upstairs to get dressed when Sam huffs out a noise of frustration and chucks the remote at the couch and Dean stops what he’s doing to stare at him.

“What is wrong with you?” Dean asks in a whisper.

“Let’s skip school,” Sam says immediately.

“What?” Dean asks, completely bemused. 

"Let's skip school!" and he's trying to look excited about it, but Dean can see there's something in his voice that makes him uneasy.

“You aren’t skipping school,” Dean says firmly.

“Why not?” Sam asks, and he has the balls to sound defiant right now. It makes Dean’s alarm shift into anger in a matter of seconds, “You do it all the time.”

Dean huffs out a humorless laugh and stares at Sam, incredulous. “Didn’t realize I was such a role model for you, Sammy.”

“C’mon, man,” Sam asked and he’s quiet now, almost begging. Dean feels the automatic instinct to respond to that tone, instinct telling him to do as he says and make his brother smile again, but it’s only for a second, “We can skip together... you always try to make me skip with you.”

“No,” Dean says firmly. 

“Why not?” Sam is starting to sound petulant.

“Because,” Dean says, knowing that the smile on his face is a nasty one from the way Sam’s expression flinches when they lock eyes, “You’re still behind in history... right, Sammy?

He shoves Sam’s backpack into his chest and walked past him and up the stairs to get ready for school, not feeling quite as triumphant as he’d wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop Whoop! Making progress on the fucked up stuff! Yeeeeeeaaaah! Also, the story is getting progressively sadder the more and more I edit it..... sorry guys :/ Gonna be posting these first few chapters every few days even though they're all written so I have time to finish up everything else. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and reviewing! You're all beautiful!


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

Session 14

* * *

 

"Too bad about not getting that snowday, huh?"

"Yeah, it was."

"You seem a little off, Sam. Are you feeling okay?"

“I have to tell you something...”

“You can tell me anything, but first can I share what I’ve been thinking about since our last conversation?”

“Uh... sure.”

“I've been thinking a lot about the associations you've made with sex, and although I think a lot of the problem has to do with your lack of sexual education and your, quite frankly, unhealthy relationship with your brother-"

"It's not-"

"-I think a part of the issue here too is that you need to understand your homosexual feelings in general before you can understand your feelings for your brother.”

“But... I’m not gay.”

“Have you ever thought about boys other than your brother?”

“No.”

“Other men?”

“What?”

“I think that your problem might not only be your twisted associations with sex, but I think a big part of it is probably your latent homosexual feelings that are manifesting in a way your brain is most comfortable with.”

“I don’t...”

“What I mean is that your sub-conscious understands that you’re attracted to men, but that hasn’t come to the surface yet. So your brain is finding a way to clue you into this, and it’s latched these feelings onto the one person you can count on. The one person who has always been there for you.”

“...okay... but... I don’t think I’m attracted to other boys.”

“How are you sure?”

“I-”

“I think you won’t understand your feelings for your brother until you’ve engaged in sexual activity with another man.”

“...”

“Sam?”

“I...”

“What was it you were going to tell me, Sam?”

“I have to... I’m going... late...”

“Sam?”

“...”

* * *

The room Dean had followed Sam to was at a dead-end in the basement of the Middle School. The door is pretty heavy duty, so when he presses his ear against it, he can only make out the murmur of voices without any words to help him figure out what the fuck is going on here.

So instead of risking being caught with his ear to a keyhole if the door opens, Dean settles himself into an alcove with a utility closet, fairly positive they wouldn’t be able to see him if they looked that way, and he’s pretty sure Sam won’t be getting anything from the utility closet on his way out.

So he sits there, head full of his brother's lies and fully expecting to be there for an hour or so, or at least that’s about how long he was guessing Sam had been spending doing whatever it was that he was doing. But it’s only five minutes before the door opens, the sound echoing in the empty hallway. He sits perfectly still listening to a familiar set of fast footsteps ring in the hallway. The footsteps suddenly speed up and when he peaks his head around the corner, Sam is running toward the staircase at the opposite end of the hallway.

Dean ignores how much that scares him as he stands up, cracking his back where it’s kinked up from sitting on a tiled floor. His steps are sure as he brings himself to the doorway, but his mind is still full of the image of Sam's retreating back, making his footsteps less sure as he approaches the room his brother had just ran from.

He doesn’t want to knock but he does. There’s a pause and then the door is swinging open.

“Back alread-”

The man stops mid-sentence when his eyes find Dean’s face, instead of what Dean presumes he expected to be Sam’s. The man facing Dean is somewhere in his forties. He’s pretty plain looking. He has blonde hair that is temporarily hiding the grey at his temples. His eyes are blue and unreadable behind a pair of oval glasses. He’s a little taller than Dean, and generally seems pretty unimpressive.

“Hi,” the man says, a hesitant smile on his lips.

“Hi,” Dean counters, and then brushes past him to enter into his office.

“I’m sorry,” the man says, hand still on the door knob as he watches Dean let himself into the office. Dean didn’t like how amused his eyes looked while his expression remained completely composed, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, strolling into the office like he owned the place, “You’re not a teacher, obviously, so what are you?” He was being an ass, and he knew it, but he liked to have the upper hand with new threats, and this man _did_ feel like a threat, no matter how hard Dean tried to shake that feeling, “And tell me _who_ you are while you’re at it.”

The man laughed, baffled, “I’m Doctor Wheston... I’m the school Counselor.”

Dean stops short, a framed photo of a family of five in his hand. He stared at the man. “You’re a shrink?”

The man’s eyes were dancing, and Dean felt uncomfortable, out of his element. There was something glaring at Dean behind that expression, and something about it sent a shiver up Dean’s spine. He clears his throat, tearing his eyes away from that gaze and he puts the framed photo back on the table.

“Oh...” the man breathes the sound out under his breath, and he suddenly sounds thrilled, “Are you Dean?”

Dean’s eyes snap up at those words, and the uneasy feeling he had looking at this man’s eyes grew steadily with every second the man smiled at him.

“Sorry, Sam is one of my patients... or ‘students I work with’ is what they like me to call them,” the doctor said, strolling into the room and shutting the door, “I wasn’t trying to freak you out.” But as he went around to the opposite side of his desk, Dean had the distinct feeling that was exactly what he was trying to do.

“Sam needs a shrink?” Dean says, amazed.

“I don’t see why you’re surprised,” the doctor says, folding his hands on his desk, “Go ahead and sit down.”

Dean doesn’t. He stands behind one of the chairs, fingers gripping the cheap maroon fabric like it’s a lifeline, “What does Sammy need a shrink for?”

“Sammy? Is that what you call him?” he says, ignoring Dean’s question.

“That’s none of your business,” Dean says, unsure why Sammy's name in this man's mouth makes him grit his teeth.

“I’m just surprised he hasn’t told me that,” the doctor says.

Dean’s fingers grip the seat a little tighter and his fingers are beginning to cramp up. “What does he tell you?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, Dean,” the doctor says smoothly. He says it with a smile that would be sincere and regretful if you saw it in a picture. But Dean thinks he looks terribly amused and mean in real life, too practiced and pristine. Dean feels like the man’s playing a joke on him.

The doctor leans forward so that he has to tilt his head to look up at Dean, and even in that position, Dean feels powerless looking down at this man who knows is name and maybe his brother's secrets. He forces himself to sound calm when he says, “He talks about me?”

“What do you think?” the doctor asks, raising his eyebrow at Dean.

Dean is inexplicably repulsed by this man who regards him with a knowing look that makes him want to put a round of salt in his face. He hates the idea that Sam has been sitting in a room with this man every day for the past two weeks. He _hates_ it more than he shoud. It makes his skin crawl that those wicked eyes have been on his little brother without him knowing it, just the two of them alone in this basement office next to the utility closet behind a heavy door.

“I _think_ that Sam doesn’t need your counseling anymore,” Dean says.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not surprised,” Doctor Wheston says sadly with an expression that doesn’t match.

“Oh yeah?” Dean asks, hackles raised.

“I should have known you would be easily threatened by another source of support in his life,” the doctor says, taking his glasses off and leaning back in his chair, “It’s a shame, because I think this was doing Sam some good.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Only having you to communicate with has clearly done a number on him,” the doctor says easily, “I’m not surprised you haven’t taken notice of it seeing as you’re the primary offender in this matter.”

“In _what_ matter,” Dean snarls.

“His upbringing... his attitude... his personality...” the doctor lists.

“And I’m an _offender_ in that?” Dean’s voice is rising now.

“Yes,” the doctor says, “Yes, I’d say that.”

Dean slams a fist into the fabric of the chair he’s holding and he snaps, “What happens in my family- between me and Sammy- It’s none of your _fucking_ business.”

The doctor leans forward, a wicked light in his expression, “What exactly does happen between you and Sammy?”

* * *

When Dean leaves the office, he keeps having the urge to look over his shoulder. He keeps replaying the meeting in his head as his feet carry him to the Impala parked on a side street, but he just can’t find a reason to justify why the man made him feel so truly uncomfortable, vulnerable.

But then again, did Sam feel it too? Hadn't Sam been messed up enough coming home one day that he gave away the whole lie? Hadn't he been begging Dean to skip school with him only that morning? Sam's running footsteps are ringing in his ears again and he remembers Sam's pale face the day his father got there and he hates that he didn't ask, let his own feelings of betrayal from the lie get in the way of taking care of him. 

He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts and the memory of the man that he doesn’t even see that someone is in the passenger seat until he has sat down behind the wheel. He’s already on edge so he jumps when he notices Sam beside him. 

“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean gasps as he forces himself to calm down. He looks at Sam for a second, waiting for the inevitable shouting match about privacy and trust or whatever it is that Sam thinks he has a right to, but it doesn’t come. 

Dean almost wishes he would shout at him, because Sam says in a voice that's barely there, “I’m sorry I lied," and the sound breaks his heart. Sam sounds tired and defeated. Dean wishes he fought back because that's what his little brother does, and Dean hates it as often as he loves it... but after he's seen and met the man that has put Sam on edge for the last week, even if he had been helping at the start, he needs his brother to be a fighter again.

Confused and nervous, Dean nods his head once before studying his brother who is staring at his hands. Dean selfishly hopes the man makes Sam feel the same way he makes Dean feel. But then, he wonders if the doctor was right, if Dean was just projecting his own need to be Sam’s everything onto an unsuspecting man trying to help his little brother. Maybe that was why the man made his skin crawl. He’d be lying if he didn’t feel threatened by the man in more ways than one.

He doesn’t really know what to say to Sam, still so uneasy after that encounter. But Sam doesn’t break the silence either, so Dean puts the key in the ignition and heads for their rental.

 

They're quiet for a long time, the cheap storefronts and suburban living passing by their window as they sit side by side in silence.

“I’m not going to go anymore,” Sam says after a few minutes, and then very quietly, “I don’t like him anymore.”

Dean chest swells with relief, and how pathetic is that? He looks towards Sam to see if he’s looking at him, but he’s still staring resolutely out of the window. Dean doesn’t know what to say to that, other than the truth. 

“Me neither...”

They drive in silence after that and Dean hates this part of the fight, this part of the problem, when the apologies have been exchanged but nothing is really solved. He still feels like he’s a million miles away from wherever his brother is in that head of his, a feeling he’s been having a lot more often these days, and he hates it. He hates it more than anything. He wants Sam back, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get him. 

When Dean pulls into their gravel driveway and parks the car, he puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder to stop him from leaving the car just yet. He should want to cringe away from this conversation like he normally would, but for once, he doesn’t have any trouble getting the words out, because Sam needs to hear this.

“You don’t need a shrink to talk about your problems...” Dean says, eyes trained on his steering wheel,  “I know I always joke about hating that stuff, but... you know you can tell me anything, right?”

He waits for Sam to call him a bitch or to get mushy, anything really, but there’s too long of a silence, so he looks to Sam who offers him a watery smile, and then Dean feels utterly helpless when he realizes that Sam has tears in his eyes.

“I really can’t...” Sam says quietly. Then he’s out the door and headed inside before Dean can stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little quickie before the weekend! Not gonna publish till Monday I'm guessing, and it's gonna be another short one and it's gonna get ruffffff.
> 
> Thank you for reading and extra thanks for all the lovely people who left comments!!


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Session 15

* * *

“What is this?”

“It’s a counseling recommendation.”

“Did you...”

“Did I what, Sam?”

“Are you _making_ me come for counseling?”

“You didn’t show up yesterday, and I think we have a lot more to work out, that’s all.”

“This is taking me out of classes... I’m supposed to be in Math right now.”

“I think this is a little more important than arithmetic... besides, I know you’re ahead in all your classes.”

“I’m going back to cla-”

“Sit down, Sam.”

“No, I’m-”

“Sit. Down.” 

“...”

“Was that so hard?”

“What do you want?”

“I’m helping you, Sam.”

“What do you want.”

“I met your brother.”

“I know you did.”

“He told you?”

“I found the car parked near the school... put two and two together...”

“You seem utterly unsurprised that your brother followed you to school and then followed you down to my office.

“So?”

“It’s not typical brotherly behavior.”

“We’re not typical brothers.”

“I’d gathered.”

“...fuck you.”

“Language, _Sammy_.”

“... don’t.”

“Well, regardless of whether or not he wants you, you certainly are very precious to him. I think we might need to reconsider who caused your perverse feelings for your brother...”

“Dean didn’t do anything.”

“No... not yet...”

“... what do you mean?”

“I didn’t tell him anything. He doesn’t know anything.”

“... he doesn’t?”

“No... but that doesn’t mean I can’t still tell him...”

“... what do you want me to do?”

“Just continue your therapy...”

“... nothing else?”

“Well... we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

* * *

Dean stares at Sam over the dinner table. Dean had offered to cook for their Dad, always phrasing it like he was doing their father a favor, when really he was just a better cook and it was better for everyone involved.

So Dean stared at Sam over sloppy joe’s, one ear on his father’s conversation to keep him talking but all of his attention on the look on Sam’s face. He looks... shocked. Dean watches him plow through his sandwich, his face completely dazed as he stares unseeing at the food on his plate.

Dean takes his attention off of Sam for a moment to ask his father a question, hoping that if he is talking enough about a hunt, maybe his attention won’t shift to Sam’s behavior. It’s not that he doesn’t think his father should be concerned for Sam, in fact he generally thinks the man should always care more about the kid, but if their father tries to pry the problem out of Sam then he’ll clam up and Dean won’t be able to help.

It works so far as Dean can tell. Their father doesn’t seem to notice the dazed look on Sam’s face or the fact that he eats his food with almost mechanical efficiency without saying a word, but Dean notices. He always notices.

When Sam does the dishes in silence, his back to where Dean and their father are sitting, Dean begins to panic. Had he been wrong all along? Was the counselor really helping and he had just been imagining the horrible feeling the man had given him?

“You finally caught up then?” their father asks when Sam takes his plate.

“Yup,” Sam says quietly.

“That’s good... we’re gonna be here for a little longer,” John says.

Dean watches Sam’s face carefully at that, because Sam is always begging to stay put. He’s always itching to join a club or a sports team or find a way to make a little piece of home wherever they’re staying. But his face doesn’t change. It’s frozen in this blank expression that makes Dean want to panic, grab his face or shake him. 

He wears the expression for the rest of the night. Dean hopes he’s imagining it but it seems like Sam is avoiding any chance to be alone with Dean. They haven’t talked about the lying or the counselor since the car, and it seems like Sam wants to keep it that way. He’s hanging near their father whenever he can, sitting next to John on the couch instead of seeking the solitude of his room or sitting by Dean like he usually would.

Their father finally sends them both to bed, and Sam won’t even stay in the bathroom with Dean to brush his teeth. He spits the second Dean walks in and then makes a b-line for his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Dean stares at the expanse of wood as he passes to his own bedroom with a nagging fear that he can’t seem to shake.

* * *

Session 16

* * *

“Please-”

“I’m trying to help, Sam.”

“How is this helping?”

“I told you Sam... you need to replace that fantasy in your mind with something different. If you don’t change it now, you might always live like this, with the wrong kinds of desires.”

“Please... I just want to go...”

“You need to understand sex the way it’s meant to be, for _pleasure_ not pain.”

“I don’t even want to be here. I want to go back to my classes.”

“Feel free... I would love to pull your father and brother into a family meeting about the things we’ve discussed... maybe even child services.”

“You said it was confidential!”

“Child abuse cases are an exception.”

“I told you! Dean would _never_ touch me. He didn’t touch me, just please don’t make me-”

“You really think that anyone is going to believe that innocent little Sammy developed feelings for his big brother on his own? Big bad boy Dean who has a criminal record and about as much self-control as a puppy? Honestly, Sam, _I’m_ still a little suspicious of it.”

“Dean _loves_ me... he would never-”

“-hurt you, I’ve heard. Much to your dismay. But the way that he spoke of you... so _possessive_... he's greedy for you...”

“...”

“What... nothing to say to that? You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you... Dean keeping you from the rest of the world... all for himself... he’s trying to... trying hard.”

“... stop...”

“Look how much you like _that_ idea. Big bad Dean keeping his little Sammy away from prying eyes- stop crying! -no one else allowed to touch-”

“-don’t!”

“Okay! Okay... no touching... not yet... just one kiss... You can close your eyes and you can even pretend I’m Dean...”

* * *

“ _I’m going to the library after school for a project with a friend, eating with his family. Don’t wait up.”_

Dean listens to Sam’s voicmaile on the phone and can’t find anything revealing in his voice. Sam was pissed, Dean knew that. Probably rightfully so after last night.

Dean had still been awake when their father started to leave the night before, Sam fast asleep in his room. Dean had already known this hunt was going wrong with 9 people dead since John and Caleb had caught wind of the problem, and who knows how many before that. But last night, he became even more alarmed when he overheard John's midnight conversation with Bobby telling him to send _“anyone who can get there in time... no, don't worry, Dean’s not coming... I’m heading back tonight. Caleb wants to move in the next few days, thinks he’ll have their trail by then.”_

So Dean had spent the night silently packing his father some sandwiches and water bottles while he listened to the clink of guns and bullets being packed neatly into John’s duffel. Whether the noise woke Sam up or the phone call, he had come wandering out of his room around one in the morning to the sight of their father leaving.

_“Does this mean we’re moving?”_ was the first thing that Sam had asked. Dean kept on mindlessly packing provisions for the trip, but he couldn’t help but wonder at Sam’s tone... hopeful instead of his usual accusing.

Sam had stood there watching them work, asking more questions than anyone would have patience for, none the less their father on his way out the door for a hunt. So eventually he finally snapped.

_"If you’re not going to be helpful, get back in bed, for gods sake!”_

He had wanted to defend Sam, he really had, but he was sick with worry for their father who was already on edge and so Dean had chosen to watch his brother’s face fall without a word, watched him shuffle into his bedroom and close the door quietly behind him.

And now, whether Sam was pissed at Dean or Dad or both, he was gonna leave Dean to sit at home and worry by himself till god knows when. He couldn’t keep still all afternoon, understandably scared for his father, but the unease was disproportionate to the situation. 

He couldn't focus on anything the entire day. He'd sit and watch cartoons for ten minutes. Then he’d smoke a cigarette, the ones he bought purely for show, on the front porch without bothering to put his coat on, unable to tell the difference between the smoke and his foggy breath in the cold air. He would go to the phone, contemplate calling his father for the hundredth time, then drop the receiver yet again before resorting to his homework for distraction.

And all afternoon, he couldn’t stop wishing that Sam were there.

“Fuck,” he says out loud as he stands on the porch smoking his third cigarette as the sun starts to set. 

More so than ever, at least since they were sitting in the car together a couple days ago, he wished he could make things okay between them. Sam was the one who had been lying to him, but from this side of the issue, Dean is the one who feels like he fucked up. He remembers Sam’s parting words, Sam telling him plainly that he can’t talk to Dean about his problems and it feels like a rejection. It feels like he’s not enough and would never be enough for Sam, which is kind of tragic because Sam’s always been his everything. 

He’s always known that Sam was always looking outside of this world that they inhabit, looking at other kids with envy while Dean was too busy looking at Sam with greedy affection. And it’s worse and worse with every inch Sam pulls away.

Dean flicks his cigarette into a snowbank and goes inside to make himself something to eat. He ends up falling asleep on the couch earlier than he ever goes to bed, waking up to Sam dragging Dean's bedding down the stairs.

“Sammy,” Dean mumbles, “You okay?”

“Go back to sleep, Dean,” Sam says, pulling the quilt over Dean on the couch.

“ _You_ go to sleep,” is Dean’s only response as he pulls the blanket over his head and falls back to sleep.

* * *

The Last Session

* * *

“Off, Sam.”

“He’s going to kill you.”

“Who, Dean? I don’t think so...”

“You have no idea what-”

“What a seventeen-year-old is capable of? I’m pretty sure I have an idea... Being a school counselor has actually clued me in to how pathetic teenagers can be.”

“You don’t fucking know...”

“I know that what we’re doing here is going to help you.”

“You’re so full of shit! I’m leaving-”

“You’re not, because if you do or if you breathe a word of this, I’d be more than happy to let your brother and father find out what a little monster you are.”

“...-what a fucking monster is-...”

“Sorry? A little louder Sam, if you’re going to mouth off don’t mumble.”

“I said, _Doctor_... _you don’t know what a monster is_.”

“Oh really?”

“Really... but we do...”

“Who?”

“Me and Dean... and if he doesn’t kill you, I will.”

“...don’t you do anything better with those lips than run your mouth?”

“No don’t-”

“Just calm down, that’s not what this is about... this is about _your_ pleasure.”

“No... please...”

“It’s like I said... just pretend I’m Dean, right Sammy?”

“No! Don’t _touch_ me!”

“Keep your voice down, Sam... there’s a lot of things that I could say if you draw anyone’s attention.”

“Don’t come near me. Don’t you da- _Stop_!”

“Trust me, Sammy-”

“Please...”

“You’re going to like this... I promise..."

“No. I won’t.”

“Don’t make this difficult, Sam... I can make you, then you’ll see how much you needed this.”

“You can’t.”

“You wanna bet?”

“I’m not a betting man.”

“Neither are we. You just try to fucking force me, pervert.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Sammy!” 

Dean is pounding on the door to the bathroom where his brother had disappeared behind the second he came rushing into the house.

“Sam I swear to God, I will kick this door in!”

When Dean had first heard Sam’s footsteps on the porch, he had been so dizzy with relief to see his brother safe and whole that it had taken him a few moments to remember why he was going to kick the shit out of the kid, which is probably why he had managed to hide out in the bathroom before Dean could really get with the picture.

Sam had disappeared for the entire day. He wasn’t allowed to do that, not when they knew what they know. He wasn’t allowed to scare Dean like that, not when their family was marked for tragedy since Sam was an infant.

“Sam, open this goddamn door and tell me what the fu-”

His words cut off as the door swings open and Sam is wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and he tries to push past Dean but Dean grabs him by the arm and stops his movements.

“It is midnight,” he’s speaking slowly, his voice trembling, “I’m already terrified about Dad, and then you do this to me?” he squeezes Sam’s arm a little harder, “Huh?”

Sam doesn’t say a word, just keeps his face turned away from Dean, trying to twist his arm out of Dean’s grip.

Dean doesn’t get mad like this, not the way Sam and Dad do. But the few times that he is pushed over the edge, and if he had to take stock of those moments, he would realize that every moment he’s pushed to the point where he’s literally shaking with rage, it has something to do with Sam, even if this rage is born purely from concern.

“You didn’t call. You didn’t leave a note. You didn’t tell me _shit_ ,” he spits the word out, “I called your school and they said that you didn’t show up for the second half of your classes today. I’ve been in and out of this house a dozen times, driving around this shit-hole-town and making the librarians crazy with my questions. I was _this_ _close_ to calling Dad and then we both would have been fucked... so where the _hell_ have you been for the past 12 hours.”

Sam still hasn’t said a word, hasn’t even tried, and he’s trying to twist his way out of Dean’s grasp with so much effort that it looks like he’s about to pull his arm out of his socket.

“Sam!” Dean shouts, and is surprised by the amount of command in his voice, his grip tightening on Sam’s arm to a point where he knows it must be painful. Sam’s body jerks at his voice and the pain and Sam immediately stops trying to pull away. Dean doesn’t understand the reaction, but he’s not going to argue with it. He pulls Sam around to face him and the kid keeps his head down.

“Are you going to say anything?” 

Sam shakes his head, eyes cast down and for a second Dean wants to shake him, wants to hurt him. Sam lied to him for weeks and barely explained himself. He ran off and scared the life out of Dean, and didn’t bother to tell him. Didn’t bother to clue Dean into his life. Didn’t he understand? Dean’s thoughts were desperate. Didn’t he get that he was Dean’s responsibility? That he was Dean’s brother and his family and his everything? Didn’t he know he was Dean’s?

These thoughts are raging in Dean’s mind when something catches his eye.

Dean feels his thoughts come to a standstill as he stares at the darker shadow beneath Sam’s hood, splayed across his neck. He drops to one knee to look up at Sam who won’t meet his eyes and he’s slowly realizing that this isn’t a trick of the eye. The rage that had been filling him up all day is rapidly being replaced by a terrified, hollow feeling as he pushes Sam’s hood off with shaking fingers.

Once in the light, Dean can’t take his eyes off the red, almost purple shadow that is spread across Sam’s neck, long thick bruises that Dean follows with his eyes, the source of which is unmistakeable. 

Heart hammering in his chest while he tries to make his brain work, he reaches a trembling hand up to Sam’s throat to measure the handprint against his own because there’s some gut-wrenching instinct in Dean’s stomach that he’s done this to him, some all-consuming guilt that is completely clouding his logic because he would never touch Sammy like that, never hurt him, never, never, but someone had...

When Dean’s hand is an inch away from Sam’s throat, Sam lets out a hoarse sob and leans into his hand so that Dean’s hand is spread across his throat and the guilt is complete. Dean’s fingers line up with the bruise to cover it completely until all he can see between his fingers is the pale, vulnerable skin of Sam’s throat and that sparks something in the back of Dean’s brain, some feeling that’s almost familiar now, but that he can’t quite understand yet.

He looks up at Sam who is staring down at him with desperate eyes and tears running down his cheeks and the story doesn’t need to be explained. Dean knows who did this. Dean knows what happened.

Dean stares at Sam as his shape begins to blur and the lights become stars as his vision becomes distorted from the tears that sprang into his eyes as he tries to hold himself steady under the crushing truth. Sam looks down at Dean with silent tears and silent eyes that are begging Dean of something... a need for something that Dean doesn’t think he can translate because his need, his selfish selfish need, is Sam, happy and whole. 

He starts pulling at Sam, pawing at his body and trying to wrap his arms around him until Sam is falling forward into Dean’s grasp, half on his knees and half in Dean’s lap, where they grasp at each other in a pile of broken limbs on the ratty brown carpet in the hallway.

Dean desperately tries to keep his mind at bay and focus on the warm body in his arms, because every time that man’s face comes swimming into his vision or the reality of what he did to his brother starts to register, Dean starts to panic, starts to fall into the overwhelming confusion of rage and hurt and sorrow and fury... so his brain pushes that reality back to the back of his brain and focuses on taking care of Sam.

Dean holds him too tight and too long, but Sam clings to him like he needs it, and god, Dean prays that he does. Sam’s body is trembling and his chest is heaving as he takes in wheezing breaths that send a grief through Dean that he didn’t realize he was capable of. He holds him a little closer and Sam’s breathing becomes erratic and Dean can hear him struggling to breathe through his damaged windpipe as he breaks down and he pulls away reluctantly.

“Breathe, Sammy,” Dean says, still on his knees while he helps Sam stand up straight, “You gotta breathe.”

“ _I can’t,”_ Sam tries to say, but no sound comes out of his mouth, just a wheeze and a fresh wave of anguish threatens to cloud his mind. 

The rage Dean feels seeing his brother so helplessly bruised and broken makes him see red. Makes him want to find the man who did this and kill him slowly... But he can’t do that, because Sam is trying to heave air into his lungs and Dean can’t kill the man who did this to his brother yet. He reaches a hand up to Sam’s chest and the other lands in one of Sam’s trembling hands.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” Sam tries to say, tears streaming down his face.

“Don’t apologize, Sam... Just calm down...” Dean is begging while he rubs gentle circles against Sam’s chest through the thick fabric of the sweatshirt he had tried to hide the bruises with, “Shhh, it’s okay, Sam. Breathe for me.”

“ _My fault_ ,” Sam wheezes, “ _My fault... My fault..._ ” again and again, barely any breath in his lungs.

“Stop that!” Dean says squeezing Sam’s hand and stilling his motion against his chest and Sam stops trying to speak, “Sammy, you gotta breathe for me,” Dean says, voice shaking as hard as Sam is, “Come on baby boy... breathe...” Sam takes a deep shuddering breath and Dean tries to smile, “There you go... it’s gonna be okay...” the breath comes out as a sob, “Shh... come on, I’ve got you,” a ragged breath in, “You’re gonna be okay,” the air falls out of him. 

Slowly, Sam’s chest begins to move with a more even rate under Dean’s hand and Dean breathes with him, a moment’s relief, leaving him and the intensity of his fury and hatred for that man that makes him afraid to be near anyone right now, especially his brother, too fragile already.

“Sammy,” Dean says, “Look at me,” he does, “This is not your fault... this is not your fault in anyway. Don’t you dare blame yourself.”

_My fault,_ Dean thinks to himself. 

He saw it. He saw it in his eyes. Dean knew there was something wrong with him. He knew there was something more. But he had just sat back, never asked Sam. He didn’t bother to protect his brother. He had neglected the only thing that he was supposed to take care of, the only thing that was his.

Dean half-carries him into his own bedroom before he really registers what he’s doing. He pulls Sam into his bed and lays them down side by side. Sam is clutching at the front of Dean’s shirt, still shaking with tears, and Dean has his arms wrapped around him.

“It was the counsellor,” Dean doesn’t make it a question. Sam let’s out a strangled sound at the words. It’s affirmation enough. 

“Sammy,” Dean says. Sam pulls himself closer and presses his face against Dean’s chest like he’s trying to hide. “I know he hurt you, but... Did he touch you?” Dean asks even though he knows the answer to that question. Doesn’t know how, or why, but he knows. Sam lets out a broken sob before nodding almost imperceptibly against Dean’s chest. 

Dean nods too, tears threatening to fall from his eyes and it takes everything out of him to keep his grip on Sam gentle, to keep his arms loose behind his back, because every instinct is screaming at him to cling to him, hold onto him hard enough that he won’t be able to let go, permanent imprint of him in his arms.

The thought that someone had touched his baby brother, that someone had dared to even think of it has him reeling and if he didn’t have to be here for Sam right now, his head would be in the toilet or his hand would be on the trigger of a gun, someone was going to die and it was unclear if it was going to be Dean or someone else. 

“Where did he touch you?” Dean asks, and he hates that he has to ask him this, but he has to know. He has to know if Sam is hurt or needs a hospital because he’s so tiny and if he did what Dean is terrified that he did, then a hospital is an entirely possible end of their night. He’s already on the verge because of Sam’s throat, scared he did actual damage to his windpipe.

Sam starts shaking his head fervently and Dean pulls away a little and Sam’s eyes are squeezed shut when Dean looks at him.

“Shh, Sammy...” Dean says quietly, “It’s gonna be okay.”

_Liar,_ Dean thinks. _Nothing is okay..._

Sam won’t open his eyes but he’s stopped shaking his head now. 

“Sam,” Dean presses, “I’m going to touch you now, okay?”

Sam purses his lips and doesn’t move an inch. Dean presses his hand against Sam’s abdomen, no lower, but Sam still tenses at the touch, never opening his eyes. “Here?” Dean asks, trying to keep his voice even, even though his eyes are brimming with tears. Sam turns his tear-streaked face into the pillow as he nods, humiliated.

Dean takes his hand off and tries not to imagine it, but the shadow of a picture shifts into his head, the image of a grown man with his hands on his brother, a naked shape he’s familiar with from years of care and co-existence.

He reaches a shaking hand around Sam’s slight frame so he can hold it against the small of Sam’s back. He pauses for a second, afraid to ask the question as he listens to Sam’s ragged breaths.

“Here?” he asks, sliding his hand an inch lower, not even sure Sam knows what he means at that age.

Sam whines into the pillow and shakes his head fervently. Dean pulls his hand away quickly, trying to appreciate that glimmer of relief, but when he does, Sam grabs a hold of his wrist, showing his face again and finally opening his eyes. There are splotches of red across his cheeks and tears staining his skin.

He pulls Dean’s hand to his face and presses Dean’s finger tips to his lips and mouths the word, ‘ _Here_ ’ the best he can, only managing to wheeze.

Dean nods, nods because if he doesn’t do _something_ he’s going to kill something. He tries to speak, tell Sam the thing he knows he has to tell him, but can’t find a way to make his words sound anything close to normal.

On his third failed attempt at making his voice sound anything but wrecked, he gives up and says to Sam in a broken voice, “You need to tell me right now, Sammy... because if you don’t... If you don’t tell me not to... I’m going to kill him.”

Sam doesn’t look shocked. He looks at him with a hesitant understanding, shaking his head and breathing out Dean’s name because that’s the best he can do. 

“Sam...” Dean says, grief making his voice heavy in the silence of the bedroom, “Sam, I can’t... I can’t let him...”

Sam just shakes his head, and Dean watches as the tears slow and Sam’s eyes grow serious. He wants to, god he wants to kill him. He wants to make him suffer. He wants to make him watch while he tells his wife what he did, make his children listen- a gut-wrenching notion comes to him... That pervert has children. Dean doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t want to think that Sam might not have been the first. That there are kids living in the home of that monsters and years worth of students have been walking down the hallways to that basement office to pour their hearts out to someone who would listen. 

But Sam is still shaking his head, a little more fervently now. “ _Please_ ,” he tries to say, “ _Please don’t.”_

“Okay,” Dean whispers, “We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay?”

Sam’s eyes are pleading still, but he nods anyways and Dean doesn’t know what else to say except, “Try to sleep Sammy,” and if he notices the heat from Sam’s erection when he pushes him onto his other side, he doesn’t think about it too hard, doesn’t say a word... just pulls Sam’s slight body against his, one arm wrapped around him and a hand resting on his chest while Sam struggles to breathe properly as he falls into a fitful sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge huge huge apologies are in order... I am so sorry that this came out so late. My schoolwork has been insane and I made THE DUMBEST decision one night to MAKE A TUMBLR WHILE PROCRASTINATING. 
> 
> Anyways, my apology present is that there's a variety of porn/angst I've been writing on there that you all can read. That's at sweet-cherry-dean(dot)tumblr(dot)com and there's a link in the sidebar for my writing tag. But no worries, the next chapter is written and will be up this week, hopefully much better edited than this chapter, because it's a wee bit rough just because I was so desperate to finally get it out there.

There had been a lot of times in Dean’s life where he was unsure of how he was supposed to be raising Sam. In fact, he’d spent his entire life winging it and hoping that his unwavering need for the kid to be safe and happy would somehow translate to the right upbringing. He basically spent his entire childhood doing his best to pretend to be an adult and pretty much always found himself in too deep... kids weren’t supposed to raise other kids. But in all his time taking care of Sam, he’d never felt as helpless as he did that next morning.

He woke up to Sam shifting in his sleep, caught up in Dean’s arms from the night before and his breathing still ragged. A fresh flood of grief had him pulling Sam close to him, maybe a little too hard because Sam made a noise of complaint as he started to wake up. 

Dean felt him start to shift away from Dean, trying to pull out of his arms. They still woke up like this by accident sometimes. They were getting taller, Dean was really full grown, and sometimes it made it seem like the beds were getting smaller instead of them getting bigger. Sam was trying to wiggle his way out of Dean’s grip like he always did these days when he woke up in Dean’s arms or the same way Dean would try to shift out from under Sam if he woke up with the kid using his body as a personal pillow.

Sam made the faintest noise of confusion and Dean gripped him a little tighter as he felt Sam’s entire body tense up in an instant. His breathing was louder now, and he was awake, and he remembered.

“Hey,” Dean whispered, trying to sound soothing without letting any of the selfish anguish into his voice.

Sam’s wrist gripped Dean’s forearm that lay over his chest hard, and Dean thought he was going to pull him off, but he just held it tightly in his hands.

“Dean-” was all Sam managed to say in a hoarse whisper, but he did say it. It wasn’t the wheezing breath, the only sound Sam could manage last night.

“No talking, okay?” Dean says, “Not today at least.”

Sam nodded shakily, and Dean realized for the first time that they were both fully clothed still. Sam was still wearing the hoodie he had on last night when he tried to hide the ugly marks on his neck from his brother. Sam’s hair was a little lanky and Dean didn’t want to think about any other reasons he might need a shower.

“You want to take a shower while I make some breakfast?” Dean asks, and Sam nods, but he takes too long to pull away from Dean and make his way to the bathroom. Dean just listens to his footsteps in the hallway and the door close to the bathroom that Sam had locked himself in the night before.

For the first time since this started, he started making a list in his head of things that had to be done. There were the easy things: he needed to see if they had witch hazel to help the bruise fade, and make-up to cover it up. He’d need to get Sam’s homework because the kid would want to keep up with work, despite his circumstance. 

The other things he had to decide were a lot less easy to work out. When was their father coming home? How much should he know and how much would Sammy let him tell? What was Dean going to do about the man who did this to his brother? Would Sam let him kill him? Would Dean be able to stop himself if Sam asked him not to?

He had already pulled out the fixings for french toast by the time he shook himself out of his thoughts, the only breakfast they had ingredients for besides cereal or eggs. There was no syrup but Sam always begged Dean to let him use whipped cream anyways, and they had some of that. He noticed that they had some vinegar, which would do for the bruise until he could buy some witch hazel.

He set a couple of pieces of french toast frying on the ancient stove they had in the house and found his backpack, rummaging around for one of his barely used notebooks. He left it open to a blank page at Sam’s place at the table with a pencil on top of it.

Sam came down eventually with wet hair, a fresh set of clothes and a blank expression. Dean tried to remember his list, tried to remember that they had to figure things out and make plans, but when he saw his baby brother mouth the word ‘thanks’ to him before pour some whipped cream on his french toast with the tiniest wrinkle between his eyebrows, Dean didn’t want to think about that stuff. He wanted to lock the doors and wrap Sam up in his arms and never leave the house, never let anyone see his brother again after what had happened.

Dean made a plate for himself and sat across from Sam, completely unable to taste his food as he watched his little brother suffocate in silence.

“Gonna pick some things up for you,” Dean says, “But we have to talk about a couple things first... don’t talk, just write your answers, okay?”

Sam nods. Dean takes in a deep breath.

“Okay...” Dean starts, “Dad...”

Sam’s reaction is immediate. His face falls and he drops his eyes to his plate, shaking his head fervently. 

“Sam,” Dean presses on, “I know... I know it’s embarrassing but... we’re going to need an adult to report him-”

Sam’s eyes snap up at that and he shakes his head hard enough that Dean only barely sees the tears in his eyes now. Sam grabs the notebook and starts scribbling frantically and Dean watches as he writes several sentences.

_I don’t want to report him._  
 _Just want to forget._  
 _Please don’t tell Dad._  
 _Please, don’t make me talk to anyone. Please._

“Sam,” Dean says heavily, “We have to report him. He fucking... christ Sam... he raped you,” Sam flinches hard at the word, “He’s a _rapist_. He’s a goddamn monster and he’d be dead by now if you hadn’t asked me not to kill him yet.”

Sam’s eyes go wider than before and he drags the notebook back across the table.

_Don’t hurt him. Please don’t talk to him. Don’t go near him._

“Sam,” Dean’s trying so hard to sound patient, to sound like this isn’t killing him, “You have to report him.”

Sam just points at the paper, points at the word ‘Please.’

“That’s-”

“ _Please, Dean_ ,” he says in what voice he has left.

“So you’re telling me,” Dean says slowly, “That not only am I not allowed to kill this man... but I’m not allowed to report him?”

Sam’s face crumples when Dean looks at him. He looks so goddamn young. He looks like such a kid right then, scared and confused and Dean thinks that must be why he’s wanted to hold him so bad, rock him to sleep and pillow his head with his body, because all of this was such a brutal reminder that Sam is a child. Dean forgets that sometimes when Sam pulls SAT words out of his ass and nags Dean to go to bed early when he has a cold. 

He forces his features into something softer, something kinder, and he stands up to go to Sam then. Sam loses resolve with every step that he takes, Dean’s presence making it okay to let his guard down. The second he’s within arms reach, they move simultaneously to be in each other’s space, arms wrapping around each other on instinct.

Dean hauls him to his feet so he can sit where Sam had been and pull him into his lap. Sam curls himself into Dean’s space like he belongs there, and Dean cradles his head under his chin, holding him tight enough that he can almost ignore the way Sam’s body is trembling while he cries.

“I’m sorry,” Dean gasps, realizing that he’s crying too, “I’m so sorry I didn’t stop it, Sam...”

Sam shakes his head, clinging tighter, “Didn’t know...” he says his voice cracking.

“Shh,” Dean whispers into his hair, leaving a kiss there too for good measure, “I did... I knew... I’m sorry.”

Then Sam is rubbing his up and down his back and Dean doesn’t know who’s comforting who anymore. They stay like that for a long time, closer than they let themselves be anymore, until they’ve both calmed down enough to remember how close they were sitting. Sam squirms and Dean lets him slide off his lap.

“I’m gonna go pick some stuff up for that bruise,” Dean says casually, like they hadn’t just cried themselves silly in each other’s arms.

Sam just nods, eyes down again looking at his cold breakfast. Dean shuffles his feet for a second before he decides to leave the kitchen and actually get something done, praying it will distract him for a little while. He’s almost out of the kitchen when he hears Sam’s small voice again.

“Thanks, Dean.”

 

 

He goes tot he pharmacy for Witch Hazel and, as much as he resents the fact that he needs to buy it, girls cover-up. He figures even if Sam does change his mind about reporting the sicko, he won’t want people staring at that. But on his way home, he finds himself parked in front of the Middle School in the guest parking lot. 

He feels utterly calm as he reaches over to the glove compartment to grab his pistol and tuck it into the back of his jeans. Walking across the parking lot on the inappropriately sunny day, filling his lungs with cold air, clears his head. He feels better than he has since before the bruises, before Sam went missing, since before Sam started lying to him. He has purpose.

When he enters the building with no obstacles, his eyes catch the sign for the Main Office and the excuse comes to his head like it had been there all along.

“I’m here to pick up Sam’s schoolwork,” Dean says to the girl behind the front desk. She was older than Dean, but not by much, maybe just out of college. She’s cheerful and bright, making arrangements quickly to have one of Sam’s classmates grab his books and homework from the professors and asking Dean to sit in one of the waiting chairs while they waited. 

“Your Sam’s brother then?” she asks making friendly conversation.

“Yeah,” Dean says.

“You using Sam being sick as an excuse to stay out of school?” she asks with a smile.

“No,” he says less warmly than he normally would have, “My Dad can’t miss work, so I take care of Sam when he’s sick.”

“So Sam must be hurting pretty bad then, huh?” she asks. Dean almost flinches at the words. He wants to hit her for saying it. She carries on though, “He’s such a sweetheart. I’ve been writing him his passes to get out of class to be with Doctor Wheston.”

Dean’s heart drops through the floor at that. The name alone should be enough to send him into a fit but he takes a deliberate breath in and out before he lets himself speak, and miraculously, his voice doesn’t shake, that same inexplicable calm saturating his mind.

“He’s been seeing him during school hours?” Dean asks.

“Yeah,” she says, “They were meeting so often, Doctor didn’t want their meetings to interfere with his social life or _family_ time,” she says pointedly at Dean, “Plus, Sam’s ahead in all his classes.”

“You seem to know a lot about him,” Dean says, trying to take in the information, connect the dots of how this tragedy has been unraveling under the noses of so many adults, but most importantly, under Dean’s radar.

“He’s pretty hard not to notice,” she says, and Dean feels a momentary feral surge of protectiveness for his brother at the words, but she speaks again, “Just a special kid, you know? Well,” she laughs and it’s a pretty laugh, “of course you know that.”

Dean thinks this pretty girl with the pretty laugh has been sending his little brother into the hands of a monster for weeks and hasn’t known it. What would she say if she saw the bruises? What would she think if she knew Sam’s pain or Dean’s grief? How quickly would she stop smiling?

“That reminds me,” she talks a lot, Dean thinks. She leans back in her chair to talk to the older secretary who looks bored out of her mind, “Has anyone let Doctor Wheston know that Sam won’t be coming in today?”

The older woman sighs, “Not yet.”

She reaches for the phone, and Dean hears himself saying, “I can tell him,” because he didn’t come here to pick up Sam’s homework.. When the two women look up he composes himself, flashes them a smile that usually makes knees go weak and says, “That way he can get the full report on how he’s doing.”

The older woman turns back to her work but the younger one smiles sweetly, “That’d be perfect. You know how to get down there?”

“Basement, right?” Dean asks.

“You got it,” she says, “And let Sam know that we hope he feels better,” she says sweetly. 

“I will,” Dean says, and he doesn’t need to struggle to sound normal now. Amazingly, he’s maintaining that calm, like he does when he’s been terrified for a hunt for days but the second he walks into the house with the spook, he finds his focus when he needs it most. 

The walk down the hall, down the stairs, goes quickly. His feet carry him to the office and he doesn’t need to pause, doesn’t need any more preparation. He opens the door without knocking.

The doctor has the courtesy to look shocked behind his desk before he sets his features into something resembling normal, but makes Dean’s skin itch to look at.

“Hi there,” he says kindly, “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Cut the bullshit,” Dean says easily, “You haven’t gotten away with anything, so no need to put on a show.”

Immediately the Doctor’s eyes harden, “I don’t know what you mean, Dean.”

“I’m not playing,” Dean says, his voice even, “I’m serious, don’t bother.”

The man studies him carefully and Dean takes the opportunity to sit down in one of the seats he had refused last time he’d been in this room, before the man sitting in front of him had put his hands on his brother.

Dean doesn’t say anything, he just studies the man in front of him and ignores the running reel of images behind his conscious mind. It had happened in this room. Just under that veil of calm that Dean had learned to feign, a dozen Sam’s were being violated in a dozen ways in every corner and on every surface of the office.

“So what’s going on here, Dean?” the man asks, and Dean knew this was going to be hard. Dean knew he wasn’t going to be easy to spook because he was smart and calculating, but he’d fucked up yesterday, and Dean had him now.

“What do you think is going on here?” Dean asks in a carefully controlled voice.

The man’s lips turn up a little, almost a smile, but not quite. “Well,” he says, with too much ease, “Sam seems to think you’re going to kill me.”

“And what do you think?” Dean asks.

The man smiles truly this time, like he was waiting for Dean to say that, “I think that Sam has developed a very serious complex where he feels the need to raise you to the status of hero in everything you do...” Dean doesn’t react to that, “...and I think that you wouldn’t have the guts.”

Dean laughs, and there’s a flicker of doubt behind the man’s eyes, “You’re a shrink... aren’t you supposed to be able to read people?”

With that he leans forward far enough that he can pull his colt out from the waistband of his jeans. The man doesn’t move an inch, but the way that his expression falls has the same effect as if he had jerked backwards, the least composure he’s had since Dean met him. His suddenly hard eyes are fixated on the gun.

“Call the police,” Dean says, “I dare you.”

The man doesn’t move.

“The phone’s right there,” Dean points to the phone with his gun, “There’s probably some school security in the school I imagine...” and it’s Dean’s turn to smile, “...so do it. Go ahead.”

The man tears his eyes away from the gun to look at Dean, “No.”

“That’s right... I knew you were a smart guy to trick Sam for so long... do you know why you’re not going to call the police?”

“Because,” he says slowly, “If I call the police, you’d probably direct them to your house where-”

“Where Sammy is waiting with your fingerprints on his neck...” Dean says with a smile, “I’d plead my case and, depending on the judge and Sam’s performance on stage, I either get off scott-free or hang in Juvie for a couple months. You on the other hand...” Dean shakes his head and laughs openly, “You’d be the scandal for years to come. Lose your wife and certainly lose those kids and go to jail till you rot where I like to think some of the burlier inmates would treat you to the same pleasures you introduced my brother to.”

The man didn’t move, but his hands that had been folded on his desk before were now gripped so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

“Do you even know how to use that gun?” the man asks.

Dean grins at him, too confident in his own skills to feel bothered to give a demonstration. So he just leans back in his chair and asks, “How much did Sam tell you about us, Doctor?”

There’s a flicker of recognition in the man’s face and Dean feels an immense sense of satisfaction at that. “You see,” Dean says, “Sam and I know about a dozen ways to kill you... and about a hundred ways to hurt you. So I just want to clarify,” Dean says tucking the gun into the back of his jeans once more, “That I’m not here to kill you, I could have had your brains splattered on the wall the second I walked into this room. I’m just here to threaten you and your family.”

The man’s eyes widen by a fraction.

“You see,” Dean says, looking at the framed photo on his desk, “You hurt my family... there’s absolutely no reason I shouldn’t hurt yours.”

“That seems fair,” the doctor says coldly.

“Glad we’re in agreement,” Dean says, “So you need to understand that I have both the power to ruin your reputation, forcing you to lose your job, family and freedom... but I also have the power to hurt everyone you love... however I want...” for the first time there’s a flicker of fear in the man’s expression. Dean would never touch an innocent mother or child, but there’s something deeply satisfying to see that this man might believe that he’s actually that nightmarish.

“Do you understand?” Dean asks when the man doesn’t offer an answer to that proclamation.

“Yes,” the man says quietly.

“Great,” Dean says, “You’re gonna answer some questions then.

The man takes his hands off the table and nods, leaning back in his chair to look at Dean.

“Go ahead,” the man asks.

“Have you ever touched another kid other than my brother?”

“No,” the man says firmly, but not defensively.

“You’re sure about that?” Dean asks, reigning in the sarcasm that is biting at the edge of his tone.

“I’d never have considered it before your brother,” the man says calmly, and for some reason, Dean believes him. He had imagined the man as some kind of chronic pedophile, a pervert who became a counsellor for kids just to satisfy whatever fucked up cravings he might have... but try as he might, that image just didn’t fit the man in front of him. He can’t seem to attach the label of wild pervert to this calculating man who had somehow tricked Sam, the kid who had always been too smart for his own good, back into his office where he...

Dean forces the images out of his mind again, beating at his brain and trying to take center stage as he sits in the room where his brother’s innocence was stolen, sitting in front of the thief who took it.

Dean wants to ask why? Why Sam? Why did this have to happen to his brother after everything that’s happened to the poor kid already? But some part of him buries the concern because he doesn’t want to know or maybe he already knows exactly why it was Sam and he’s scared to let his brain think in that context.

“Did he fight you?” Dean asks.

“Are you asking if he wanted it?” the man asks lightly.

Dean is on his feet in an instant, his hand on the hilt of his gun as he stalks his way to the front of the man’s desk and leans a hand on it. 

“I asked,” Dean says slowly, “Did he fight you.”

“Barely,” all that cockiness out of his voice again as Dean looms over him, “It didn’t last long.”

Dean stands up straight again and stares down at the man.

“How the hell did you fight my brother?” Dean asks.

The man falters at that, “What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen my brother take down guys twice your size,” Dean says, “Things a hell of a lot scarier than you. He sometimes gets the jump on me, and I’m confident I could take you out in a matter of seconds.”

“Dean,” the man says in a placating tone, “Your brother is fourteen years-”

“Thirteen,” Dean interrupts, “Just so you have all the information, you raped a thirteen year old yesterday.”

The man flinches at that, but plows on, “Regardless,” he says, “A thirteen-year-old shouldn’t be very hard to subdue-”

“ _How_ ,” Dean persists, “Tell me _how_ you did it.”

“I-” the man cuts himself off and looks away from Dean for the first time in a long time, “I just... he stopped fighting when I got a hand on his neck.”

Dean’s head stumbles at that information, “What?”

“I got a hand on his throat and he submitted immediately,” the man says, a kind of cold intent in his voice, “Didn’t fight me after that, just let me do whatever I wanted to him.”

“Why...” Dean tries to find the question that’s in his head, but there’s a buzzing in his ears and a kind of nagging feeling that is both familiar and unfathomable, like waking up from a dream and remembering it’s personality but none of the details.

He can feel the man watching him. Dean knows he’s being watched but he can’t make himself move or ask any questions because that feeling is insistent, pressing in at the periphery of his mind, screaming into his conciousness that there’s something he missed. Something he refused to see. 

“Sam doesn’t know you’re here...” the man says slowly, cutting into that mental voice that is suddenly starting to sound eerily like the Doctor himself, “Does he...”

Dean has to leave. He needs to leave and run to the Impala, blast the music so loud he can’t hear himself think and go home and pack Sam up and run from this town, from this man and from that feeling.

“In fact,” the man continues, and Dean feels like he can almost predict his words, “I bet he asked you specifically not to talk to me,” the man says, and Dean hears the confidence slipping back into his voice, “He begged you didn’t he?”

Dean takes a step backwards towards the door but he feels like he’s moving in slow motion as the words register in his brain. It’s getting hard to tell the difference between the Doctor’s words and the ones in his mind, the blood rushing hard enough that his head feels dizzy with it.

“You’ve asked a lot of questions, Dean... but you missed one,” the man’s voice is almost cold now, none of the wicked happiness under his tone like the first time they met. 

Dean can’t help it, he turns around and stares into those intelligent eyes while he asks with as much defiance as he can muster, his voice sounding impossibly loud over the static in his ears, “Oh yeah? What’s that.”

The man smiles.

“Why...” he says simply, “You’re not asking why.”

“Because you’re an evil pervert, that’s why,” Dean is speaking without his brain’s permission. He doesn’t want to goad this man. He wants to gag him. 

“Think what you like...” the man said, “I was just helping him... I just did what he wanted...” the man says, his lips turned up in the tiniest smile.

“You’re out of your fucking mind-” Dean hears the words said in his voice, but he can’t stop them, “-if you think that my brother wanted a piece of shit like you to-”

“Oh no,” he says quietly, but he says it with so much sureness that it cuts Dean’s violent words off immediately, into his ears and straight into his consciousness, “He didn’t want _me_ to put _my_ hands on him...” Dean freezes, “Still haven’t guessed it yet?”

He wants to stop listening, close his ears and go home to Sammy so he can hold him till the sun goes down and maybe they won’t wake up the next time they fall asleep.

“You know the answer, Dean,” he says, “Come on... why couldn’t he talk to you about it? What was so wrong that he couldn’t even confide in you, Dean?”

The gun hangs heavy in his hands and he wants to raise it, pull the trigger, and keep this man from saying what he is sure isn’t going to surprise him, but is going to ruin him. 

The Doctor’s voice is cold and clinical when he speaks.

“Do you think you would have figured it out on your own eventually, Dean?” the man asks. Dean’s heart is hammering in his ears as he turns around, the mans voice cutting through the buzzing in his ears clear as day...

“That your brother wants you to fuck him, I mean?”

The man’s hands are folded on top of his desk again, happy to take his place of superiority again as he appraises Dean from his seat. 

“He dreams about it all the time...” he says, “About you hurting him... killing him... and he gets off on it.”

Dean can’t move. 

Can’t think. 

Can’t breathe. 

Dean suddenly regrets bringing his gun with him, because he very nearly puts it in his mouth when the monsters speaks again.

“You see,” he says, “This stalemate goes in both directions. We’re both screwed if either of us brings another party into this situation, so you’re going to stay for just another minute Dean, because I want you to know that your brother came with my fingers around his throat, moaning your name. He came hard, Dean... I barely had to touch him. It was right there against the door behind you. I realized what I had done, by putting that mark on him, but I think it was almost worth it to see him break apart so beautifully. But I knew I had made a mistake, so since I had already ruined our arrangement, I thought, I’ll put my cock down his throat just because I can. He took it too, took the whole thing... just something for you to think about when you inevitably get around to doing the same.”

Dean runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (can anyone tell me in the comments if they've changed the format for posting on here? 'Rich Text' no longer works on my computer :/ )


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hands out pointy rocks to all readers who have waited a year for an update* My stoning will begin at the end of the chapter

Dean’s been sitting outside of the house for at least ten minutes. He’s staring hard at the steering wheel, unable to even look at the house his brother is in… not yet.

After he left Doctor Wheston’s office, he’d ran to his car and sped out of the parking lot, breaking every speed limit the prissy little town had tried to enforce, before he realized he’d forgotten Sam’s books and homework in the office. The secretary’s smile had flickered when Dean came brushing past her, grabbing the pile of textbooks and papers without a word and turning his back on the office. 

The drive home seemed to last no time at all, not when Dean’s thoughts were nothing but the repeated image of a grown man shoving his cock into his baby brother’s throat while he smiled at Dean saying _‘Taking the whole thing.’_ Dean’s body jerked every time he heard those imagined words, his stomach writhing in painful knots in a pathetic defense against the more terrible pain tearing at his heart.

When Dean pulled into their long-winding driveway, he had stopped, wondering if he had the guts to even meet his brother’s eyes after what he’d heard, after what he’d _realized_. Because he hadn't realized it, but he had known… he had _known_ that-

_“-little brother wants you to fuck him-"_

The man’s voice running through his head makes him want to bash his head against the steering wheel, not even wondering if Sam has noticed him stalling in his car.

_“-dreams about it-"_

Dean’s knuckles go white on the steering wheel.

_“-about you hurting him-"_

He remembers the marks on Sam’s neck, the blood just under his skin where he was touched.

_“-killing him-"_

He remembers the way that his fingers fit over the marks so neatly… the way that Sam leaned into his touch so that Dean could feel the vulnerable tendons in his throat against his fingertips. 

_“-and he gets off on it.”_

He remembers that inexplicable guilt, that shameful pull in his gut he had tried so hard to pretend he hadn’t felt when he had pinned Sam to the ground that day, swearing to himself he hadn't had any intentions of... the memory of Sam stilling beneath him as Dean’s hand made contact with his face sends an echo of that same violent emotion.

He had done this to Sam. He must have, Dean was sure of it. Sam who was smart and sweet and generous and kind couldn’t have concocted these feelings on his own. Dean must have done something to twist his brain. 

He must have loved him too much. He had dragged him too close to his heart and refused to let him go. Now Sam couldn’t figure out where he belonged. Dean didn’t know how he was going to face him now, the cause of those feelings that had led to Sam being so hurt, so irreversibly damaged. 

He moved anyways. He opened the car door and put one foot in front of the other towards the boy who was his entire world because he had no choice. When he pushed open the screen door and saw Sammy lying on the couch- curled up on his side, eyes staring blankly at the television that was blaring a generic cartoon- Dean realized that it didn’t matter. 

Even if he had been the cause of Sam’s suffering, nothing had really changed… just because Dean knew what Sam was feeling doesn’t change how _he_ felt about Sam. It didn’t change the fact that Dean still felt an almost overwhelming love for the kid and it certainly didn’t change the fact that he was going to do everything in his power to keep him safe and happy and whole.

It takes him two deep breaths in and out before he convinces his feet to move, but finally he’s making his way to the couch and Sam flinches when he’s only a few feet away, like he hadn’t even noticed him in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says, trying to sounding less nervous than he is, “Just me… how are you doing?”

Sam doesn’t answer, whether it’s because of his voice or the answer to the question, Dean doesn’t know. 

“Listen,” Dean says, preparing the lie on on the back of his tongue, “Before you flip out, I wanted to tell you that I went to the Middle School-”

Sam’s head snaps towards Dean, eyes wide and terrified, already shining with enough emotion that it scares Dean.

“I said don’t flip out!” Dean says with a level of ease that surprises even him, “I didn’t shoot anybody…”

Dean says it with a smile, but Sam’s eyes are still brimming with tears.

“I didn’t do anything Sam…. didn’t talk to him, didn’t tell anyone… I just got your textbooks,” Dean says gesturing to his own backpack that’s packed with advanced 8th grade textbooks and get well notes from teachers who love Sam already of course.

Sam still looks nervous, he sniffles and takes the backpack from Dean, unzipping it and looking inside.

“Told ‘em you’re real sick,” Dean says, dropping the other bag on the couch without really thinking, “That you’d be out of school for a couple of days at least.”

Sam nods, sits up and opens the other bag to peer inside and almost immediately, his face goes dark again. He reaches in and pulls out the cheap disposable camera Dean had bought at the register of the drugstore as an afterthought.

“Dean…” Sam says, his voice scratchy and weak, but his tone heavy.

“What?” Dean asks innocently, because he knows why he bought the camera, but was Sam really that quick?

“Is this…” Sam’s voice is barely there, but he’s forcing the words out through his ragged throat, “Is this for…”

“Sam-”

“Evidence?”

“You aren’t supposed to be talking, kid.”

_“Dean-”_

“Just hear me out-” Dean begins.

“No,” Sam says, his voice stronger now somehow, still hoarse enough that Dean can’t forget for a second what happened.

“You don’t have to decide now what you’re going to do-”

“Dean…” Sam says in that same placating tone, and it drives him nuts. It drives him crazy that Sam can talk so calmly about letting that man go, letting him off with no punishment. What’s worse is he _knows_ now, he knows why Sam didn’t want him to talk to the man who did this to him, and it still doesn’t move him for a moment to want to let this man free. 

“Scratch that, you’re in no position to decide what you should be doing right now,” Dean says angrily, his voice louder now, “You’ve been attacked and you have no idea how you’re going to feel about this whole thing once those bruises fade.”

Sam opens his mouth to speak. “Don’t!” he gestures violently and despite the fact that he knows, Dean isn’t ready to actually _see_ it. He is utterly unprepared when Sam shrinks back into the cushions of the couch, his cheeks pink and his lips parted.

He feels nauseous.

He lowers his hand slowly, seeing what he had done to Sam in a single thoughtless instance, and wonders how many times they’ve been here before. He tries to remember every time he’s hurt Sam as a joke, how many times he’s swatted him out of frustration, pinned him in the dirt for training. He wonders how many times his little brother has looked at him just like this, ready to submit and wanting to _take_ it.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, and Sam’s eyes don’t show any suspicion, assuming that Dean had enough reasons to feel guilty, no idea that Dean knew now. 

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Dean repeats, and he grabs the pad of paper off the table next to the couch, “Don’t talk though, just… I’m listening, just please don’t talk. You’ll get better faster.”

Sam nods, looking at Dean while he takes the notepad, pausing to look up at Dean.

“Okay,” Dean sighs, relieved but unable to untie the guilty knots twisting in his guts, “If there’s even the smallest chance that someday,” Sam’s head shakes just barely, making his bangs fall in front of his face as he rolls his eyes, “That someday you’ll want to do something about what happened to you… then we need to have proof, Sam…”

Dean watches as Sam scribbles one word on the pad of paper.

_Fine_

Dean lets out a breath, tearing the cardboard off the camera, “Let’s just get it over with, okay?”

Sam nods.

“Okay,” Dean reaches out a tentative hand, “Can I touch you?”

Sam rolls his eyes, but when Dean gently tilts Sam’s chin up, exposing the length of his neck Dean can’t keep his eyes off the way that long muscles work beneath bruised skin as Sam swallows nervously. Dean knows why Sam’s nervous, knows why Dean’s hands at his throat make him tremble just barely.

When Dean pulls his hand away, it feels heavy, reluctant. He goes to snap a photo, marveling at how small and innocent the ugly bruises look through the tiny square of the view finder.

“How do they look?” Sam rasps with a bitter smile. 

Dean frowns. He hates to think about them, already purpling. Soon they’ll be blackish green, then yellow, then Sam’s skin will be the same as it always was. Pale and perfect.

“Shh,” Dean soothes, hand at Sam’s chin again, tilting his head one way to get a better view of the four longer bruises, Dean’s mind filling in the shape between the dark marks his finger tips left. His thumb strokes over Sam’s jaw, “They’re already a little better.”

Sam snorts in disbelief, but Dean thinks it sounds nervous, and Dean pulls his hand away too quickly. Sam swallows again. Dean takes another picture. Dean feels the pull towards Sam’s skin and tells himself that he’s only touching Sam here because if he didn’t, Sam would be suspicious. He keeps that thought in his head as Sam’s eyes close gently when Dean’s calloused fingers make contact with the thin skin beneath his chin as he tips his head the other way.

This side of his neck has the darkest bruise, an ugly black circle where the man’s thumb had dug into the vulnerable muscles. His stomach is roiling with a mess of fury and terrible guilt and love. When Dean pulls his hand away this time, he lets his fingertips trail down Sam’s neck to brush against his brother's violated skin.

Sam takes in a sharp breath, but Dean doesn’t stop petting against that spot, Sam’s throat working quickly to swallow down any more emotion than he’s already revealed.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, trying to put enough meaning behind it that he can apologize for all of it, for everything he knows now.

Sam nods just barely, swallows one more time and Dean’s eyes focus on the way that the light catches in his wet eyelashes. He’s sorry for everything. Sorry this happened, but even more sorry that it took ugly marks on his brother’s skin for him to realize Sam was suffering, to realize that there was a whole confusion of problems under these bruises that Dean had absolutely no idea how to solve.

But he would figure out a way. He could fix this. He had to.

He pulls his fingers away from his neck. He takes the last picture while tears run down Sam’s cheeks.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“It’s me Dean,” is what his father says when he finally calls through a bad connection from a number Dean doesn’t recognize. It had days of silence and waiting, but despite it, Dean couldn't help the rush of relief at hearing his father safe and whole after a hunt.

Dean had spent a week alone with Sam and the memory of what had happened. Every single day Sam did his schoolwork quietly at the kitchen table, and Dean watched those bruises fade from purple to black with that ring of yellow on the edges. Dean watched and waited for their father.

He almost had hoped that his father would walk in unannounced. It would solve his problems, he knew it and he felt like a selfish bastard because of how much it would kill Sam. Dad would take one look at the marks on Sam’s neck and load the shotgun before Sam could protest. And he would see the bruises because Sam had told Dean he didn’t want to use the make-up to cover up the bruises, had been wearing them like it wasn’t the ugliest thing Dean could ever remember looking at, never being able to shake that initial instinct that they were his own fingerprints marking the crime he had committed on his brother, what he had done to him.

But Dad never showed up. Dean only had his voice through the fuzz of what was probably a crappy pay-phone in some backwater town in Canada telling Dean that he’s going to be another two weeks and that they should- “Meet me in Buffalo, we’re gonna be there for a bit so you know what to do with the school-forms. Sign my name if you have to.”

Dean shouldn’t feel disappointed that his father was never going to see the bruises or know who had put them there. He shouldn’t need to count on his father to clean up this mess because it was his own weakness keeping him from putting that fucker in a grave like he deserved. He doesn’t know what is keeping him from doing it. He hopes it’s the fact that he’s doing it for Sam, because it’s what he wants and Dean can’t resist that.

But he’s afraid the real reason is that he just doesn’t have the balls to tell Sam what he knows. He couldn’t possibly spit Sam’s secret back in his face with the only excuse being the freedom to kill the bastard now. He can’t possibly hurt them anymore than he already has, so just let him, _let me kill him. I know now, Sammy. I'll fix this, just let me..._

But he remembers the way that Sam had stilled under him that day he had slapped him across the face. He remembers the way that Sam had forced his body between Dean’s shaking fingers that first night. He remembers the way that Sam had swallowed helplessly when Dean’s fingers were on his throat.

Sam’s already in too much pain, and Dean can’t make himself add to it, no matter how much it goes against everything he wants for himself. 

So he just ignores the way the marks on Sam's neck make him want to break something. He ignores the way that Sam's slowly healing windpipe makes it impossible for Dean to think of anything else on the few occasions that they speak. He ignores the monster's voice in his head as he’s falling asleep, the voice that reminds him what his brother wants from him. He ignores it all because it won't be forever. They'll get through this. Dean will make sure of that.

He’ll fix this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, would sorry really cut it guys? It's only been whut..... a year?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I said I'd have this over the week-end, I meant I'll have this just as soon as my sister stops getting me drunk.

By the time that their father shows up in Buffalo two weeks later, Sam's skin looks just as smooth and even as it always had. Dean can’t appreciate the relief at seeing his father unhurt after the bitch of a hunt he’s come home from, not since the permanent knot he feels in his chest ever since he’s known.

Not known about the rape. That just sends a white-hot rage through him every time he remembers, every time the image of Doctor Wheston comes into his mind unbidden. And the fury doesn’t fade, not like he had thought it would. Every time the memory strikes him, whether it be the bruises, the monster’s voice, the tears in Sam’s eyes, every time it was harder for Dean to resist marching to the police station with that disposable camera that was sitting heavy at the bottom of his duffel bag.

No that wasn’t the knot that he couldn’t ignore. The thing causing that was the knowledge that Sam had gotten so twisted up inside over Dean. That pain sat tight and solid, right next to his heart, impossible to ignore. It was a forcible reminder every time that his little brother looked at him, every time that they brushed hands or Dean held him at night, that Dean had screwed him up, and that he was probably making it worse with every second that he’s with him.

But life goes on. Dad hunts, Dean skips classes to take care of a few local jobs, and Sam does his homework. Sam is quiet though. Their father doesn't notice. Dean does.

They don't talk about it, not since Dad’s been around. They don’t have the chance, but Dean’s always trying to help. He can tell he’s being too kind. Sam can see right through it too, rolling his eyes whenever Dean drives him to the library after school without complaint, whenever Dean offers him second helpings of dinner for no reason whatsoever, whenever he drags Sam to mini-golf and movies every Friday night that he can convince Sam to ditch his homework until the week-end. 

And then sometimes Sam looks for help himself. There have been more than a couple of nights when Sam has come to Dean’s room after dark. They don’t talk then either. Sam just prods at Dean until he wakes up, and Dean usually catches on pretty quickly. He looks up at the dark shape of Sam, trying to tell if Sam is crying this time in his own sleep-hazy state.

“Can I-” is usually as far as Sam can get it.

Dean understands that this is fucking Sam up. He understands that letting Sam do this is part of the problem. But Dean knows this isn’t about that. The kid isn’t asking because of how he feels about Dean. Sam’s asking because he feels wretched and someone broke him worse than Dean did, and Dean is the only place he has to go.

“Dean… Can I-”

So Dean pulls at him until he’s crawling into bed. Sam just curls up right alongside Dean, his knees tucked up close to him, but his head close enough that he can push his face against Dean’s. He lets Dean pull the covers around them, arms wrapped around him so that he’s warm all over.

Considering the source of the grief that’s tearing at Sam, Dean doesn’t know how he didn’t anticipate the problem.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sam had never been a good sleeper, but Dean used to always be able to sleep through his squirming and mumbling in bed. Whether it was because of all the moving around or just the way Sam was, he had always slept fitfully, even when he was a baby. So Dean over the years had managed to figure out a way ignore it, hold Sam a little tighter and fall back asleep.

So he’s entirely unprepared when one night he wakes up with a start, no explanation, to find his brother shifting minutely on the bed, not a sound except for a squeak from only a foot or so away.

Sam had come into Dean’s bed earlier that night with his eyes wet. He had curled up into Dean like he always did, and that was that. But he had moved away from Dean in his sleep, lying flat on his back, still close enough so that Dean could feel his body heat bleeding through the sheets.

Dean’s eyes adjust to the dark and it’s like he knows what he’s looking for.

Sam is still, the long lines of his body tense. Dean opens his eyes wide, trying to adjust to the dark before he has to accept what he’s seeing.

“Sam,” he whispers.

Blurry shapes start to sharpen as Dean’s eyes adjust to the dark, and he already knows what he’s looking for, dread’s it. He’s suddenly struck with a kind of panicky fear, because Sam’s not breathing.

_Sam’s not breathing_.

“Sammy, wake up,” he says suddenly more scared than he’s been since Sam went missing, ignoring the fact that their father is two doors down and has never been a heavy sleeper.

Sam’s chest ticks, the movement unnatural and unsettling. His fingers are twisting in the sheets and Dean is terrified to touch him. Not now, not when he knows what he’s seeing behind those twitching eyelids.

_He could be dreaming of Doctor Wheston… it might not be you…_

But Dean knows somehow, that somewhere in Sam’s head, Dean is there too, hurting him, pressing into him and his throat until Sam can’t bear it anymore.

Dean sits up, and he refuses to look down past Sam’s heaving chest, desperate for air, refuses to look at how this might be affecting Sam. It’s not hard to keep his eyes north, not when Sam’s throat is working to pull in air that won’t come and Sam’s mouth is hanging open, gaping, 

“Sammy!” Dean hisses, hands hovering over his shoulders, too afraid to touch, “Sammy! Please wake up!”

Sam’s face is turning red, and Dean can’t believe how scary it is to see, can’t believe that it could be worse than he imagined. He watches Sam’s chest heave one last time before he has his hands on his shoulder to shake him, but the moment Dean touches him there’s a shuddering gasp.

Sam is breathing in great gulps of air, and he’s awake suddenly, looking up at Dean with sleep-heavy eyes and an oxygen-deprived brain.

A sluggish hand grips Dean’s wrist, and Dean feels assured for just a second, the warmth of Sam’s fingers and their strong grip, it reminds him Sam’s alive and with him. And then-

Dean’s hand is being dragged towards Sam’s neck, lining his fingers up alongside where those bruises had been, the bruises that had made Sam come under that man’s touch. Sam has used what little strength he has to bring them to this.

Sam’s eyes are slipping shut again when Dean rips his hand away from Sam, the sight of his hand impossibly broad against his little brother’s throat that is dragging air into his heaving chest while Sam lies under him, pliant and content.

Dean doesn’t know what gives it away, maybe he looks as horrified as he feels. Maybe Sam can read the guilt on his face the same way he has always been able to. Maybe Sam can see his own cry for help mirrored in Dean’s face.

Whatever it is, Sam’s confused eyes suddenly widen. Dean watches as his little brother’s eyes go from tired and confused to awake and devastated. The tears are almost immediate.

“Sam-”

Dean’s hands are back on his shoulders when Sam tries to move away. Still out of breath, he tries to force his way out of Dean’s grip. He hates to see Sam so distressed, but christ the relief is making him dizzy.

“Hey, hey hey hey, Sam, calm down, are you okay?

He’s twisting and shoving at Dean, but Dean’s not letting go of him, not after he watched his brother without oxygen in his lungs for what felt like an eternity. He’s never letting Sam go again. He’ll grab hold and never let Sam shake him off if it’s all he can do to feel Sam warm and here under his palms.

“Let me go!” Sam hisses.

“Sam, just calm down-”

“Dean-”

“Would you just sit still!”

Dean’s forcing Sam into the bed now, a leg thrown over both of Sam’s and his wrists pinned above his head. Sam’s lying under him still now, humiliated and ashamed, and it’s no secret why. Dean can feel exactly what’s made Sam stop struggling, he feels it hot against his thigh.

He pulls his hips away, the guilt and embarrassment come in a sudden flood. He moves so that he’s only straddling one of Sam’s legs, hips safely away from Sam’s.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I… fuck, Sam… I didn’t mean to-”

“He told you.”

Sam says quietly, his voice clogged with tears. Dean shakes his head, still completely covering Sam.

“Sam, would you just listen to me?”

“I told you not to talk to him and you-” Sam chokes back a horrible noise in his throat. God, Dean can’t stand the guilt on Sam’s face, can’t stand the grief this is bringing his brother. He’s unable to understand how Sam can even begin to feel an ounce of responsibility when this has never been his fault.

“-and you didn’t listen to me, Dean! You did it anyways and he told you!”

“Yes!” Dean hisses, “He fucking told me, yes… why didn’t you tell me,” he says, giving his wrists a harsh shake, “Huh?!”

“Dean!” Sam sobs.

“How could you want that, Sammy…” Dean asks suddenly desperate. 

He feels drunk on everything he’s feeling for his brother. Pity and love and shame and possession…

“Why do you want that from me? To hurt you- to- to- Jesus Christ…”

“I’m sorry, Dean!” Sam cries. 

And he’s really crying. Dean’s looking down at the hectic red splotches on Sam’s face as he hiccups back sobs, cheeks wet with tears. Sam had come to him with that face a thousand times before, same words.

_I’m sorry I broke your toy, Dean. I’m sorry Dad yelled at you, Dean. I’m sorry you had to leave your new friend, Dean._

Always looking for comfort as much as he was looking for forgiveness. And that’s all Sam was looking for now, all he had been looking for since it happened.

_My fault._

Sam had said it so many times that night, like what he had done, what he had _felt_ , was something bad and dirty, something worse and more terrible than what had happened to him. He couldn’t stand that Sam believed what had happened to him was deserved, that anything he had felt could have contributed to it.

He has to fix this.

“Why do you want that?”

His voice is gentler this time, despite the fact that he feels anything but. His body is too high, sweating with a pounding heart, high off of Sam under him where he belongs. Together where he can see him and feel him and protect him. 

Sam doesn’t say anything, just stares up at him while the tears run down his cheeks.

“Why don’t you…”

His fingers ease up on Sam’s wrists. He watches the way that Sam’s fingers relax, amazed that he could have ay kind of effect on Sam’s body.

“Why don’t you want this?”

His thumbs slip into Sam’s fists, stroking at his palms.

“Why do you want me to hurt you?”

Sam’s breath is hitching, his eyes wider now but his body stiller, quieter. Waiting.

He trusts Dean. Dean sees it in his eyes. Despite everything that has happened to him, despite being hurt in the worst way, he still is putting his body in Dean’s hands, knowing that Dean is going to take care of him.

The thought sends him reeling, his brain fuzzy with the thought. He _needs_ it to be true, oh god let it be true.

Dean’s eyes fall on Sam’s neck, and the shadow from the streetlights outside almost makes him see it again, the dark bruises that the bastard’s fingers had left behind. He dips his head low until he can feel the heat of his brother’s body on his lips, hovering just above the newly healed skin. A hand comes trailing down Sam’s arm and finds Sam’s neck, resting lightly on that vulnerable skin.

He can feel Sam trembling beneath him. He keeps his eyes on Sam’s skin, afraid to look in his eyes. Sam’s breath is shaky and his skin is blushed red, past his cheeks down his neck and disappearing underneath Dean’s fingers. He flexes his fingers once, just to feel the give of those delicate muscles, and Sam’s eyes flutter closed and a shock of heat makes Dean squeeze just the tiniest bit, flesh giving way easily under his grip.

“Please, Dean…” Sam begs, his voice strained from the pressure on his throat.

Dean sees the whole picture then. Sam lying under him, smaller and weaker, with a hand at his throat. He’s completely and utterly without control, and he’s arching his neck so that the fingerprints Dean has made in his skin are stretched more taught, harder to see, and he wants Dean to push harder. That’s what he’s begging for. He wants Dean’s fingers under his skin and hurting him where that monster had hurt him, touched him-

Dean’s stomach churns violently and he forces his fingers to relax on Sam’s throat, and he doesn’t know why it was so hard.

He needs to fix this… needs to fix Sam and fix them and…

Sam breathes deeply, his expression embarrassed and disappointed. Dean pets at his throat like he’s done before, feeling the breath going in and out of his lungs and Dean needs that, needs air in Sam’s lung and a smile on his face and, christ, he needs to give Sam whatever he wants.

_Not whatever he wants… not that…_ Dean thinks suddenly.

He ducks his head in the crook of Sam’s neck, tongue darting out to taste the skin before he closes his lips in a kiss. Sam shudders. Dean swipes his tongue along his neck, feeling the way that Sam’s body goes tense, before he relaxes with a stifled moan. Dean nuzzles into Sam’s neck when he feels Sam’s free hand come to rest in his hair, so hesitant and gentle. It forces a powerful rush of fondness past all of the heady need to make Sam feel good, make him feel right.

He pauses against Sam’s pulse until he feels his heartbeat, too fast but strong against his lips. He feels it beat once, twice, and a third time before he pulls away just far enough so that he can drag his teeth against Sam’s jaw.

Sam’s body arches off the bed violently at that with a sharp intake of breath, and Dean had felt him before, how badly Dean affected him, but he focused on it this time. This time he pauses to feel the way that Sam humps his hips against Dean’s thigh so that Dean can feel the heat of him dragging against his skin.

Sam is so innocent in his need, completely in contrast to the filthy things Dean knows he dreams about, and it’s such a goddamn relief. Dean feels so grateful that Sam can feel this way without the violence, just from his brother’s touch.

Dean lets go of his other wrist and grabs a hold of Sam’s skinny hips, dragging his brother’s body between his legs again, with intent this time. Sam’s panting again, whether from need or nerves, Dean doesn’t know. Sam arches off the bed again, but Dean’s hands hold his hips down. That makes Sam moan and Dean realizes what he’s doing.

Holding him down, biting him… he’s getting a better gauge of what falls into the category of the things that Sam wants Dean to do to him and the ways that Sam wants to be hurt.

Dean immediately loosens his grip on Sam’s hips, sitting back on his heels so that he can look at the whole picture now.

He hasn’t ever ever imagined being in this moment with his brother, not even in his worst fantasies, but if he had pictured it before, tried to guess at how he feels, he doubts that he would expect to feel so tender.

Sam is lying splayed out on his back and he looks scared, but so trusting and needing Dean so badly that there are still tears in his eyes. Dean wouldn’t have ever guessed that this sort of picture could awaken so much earnest love and affection. It makes his heart ache.

Sam looks up at him, body trembling and eyes full of fear even while he whispers, in the smallest voice- “Please.”

Dean doesn’t stop moving after that. He slides Sam’s pajamas off, where Sam is naked and hard underneath. Dean shoves the emotions the sight gives him, heart beating frantically between his ribs, because this was for Sam. This had nothing to do with him. This was showing Sam he wouldn’t hurt him, couldn’t hurt him and everything of Dean’s was his if he wanted it, if he asked.

Sam looks so small laid out, wearing nothing and staring up at his brother. He was straining under him, cock small and wanting, begging, for Dean. The memory of what Sam had been dreaming of comes back to Dean and an anguished sound comes out of him. His grip on his brother’s body is soft now, sweet, fingers gliding slow over the tender skin of Sam’s stomach, the thin layer of skin over Sam’s sharp hipbones, right on the line where Sam was growing baby soft hairs between his legs.

How could anyone have hurt this? How could anyone have seen this and wanted to mar it, violate it. It was disgusting. Blasphemy. 

When his fingers grip the base of Sam’s length, turning it towards his mouth where he’s curled over Sam’s small frame, trying to take up less space next to this tiny perfect thing. Sam suddenly moves, motions rushed and desperate as he grabs one of Dean’s hands cradling his hip in his palm, and Sam yanks it up to his neck for a second time.

This time when Dean’s fingers brush against the vulnerable skin of Sam’s throat, they both moan. Dean feels a sudden familiar heat inside of him, because that’s twice tonight Sam’s put his fingers on his throat, and he’s starting to get used to the sight. He feels a sharp tug of shame at the way his cock jumped at the sight. 

Sam’s eyes slip shut in satisfaction, but shoot open when Dean pulls his hand away again. 

It’s harder every time.

“Not gonna hurt you,” Dean says, voice strained and broken.

“Dean,” Sam sounds worse, strung out.

Dean shuts his ears to it, and he strokes Sam once, slow, his little brother’s cock almost disappearing in his fist. Sam’s resulting moan was half frustration and half-defeat, he does it again and Sam’s hand flies to his mouth, biting the meat of his palm in a failed attempt to keep a muffled whine at bay.

“S’ good?” Dean says, watching in awe as his brother squirms under his hand, broad palms looking enormous against the flat plane of Sam’s stomach. 

He can’t believe how beautiful Sam is like this. He can’t focus on his hand because he’s too busy staring at the way that Sam’s chest catches every time that he gasps, the way that Sam’s stomach goes concave when he takes those deep breaths that make his chest swell, the way that Sam’s eyes don’t seem to leave his face, and the way that they’re so helplessly full of love.

That’s okay, Dean thinks, all the love he’s ever had in the world has always been for Sam.

Sam already looks like he’s going to lose it, and Dean is suddenly struck with the feeling that this isn’t enough. Taking Sam in his hand and working him through this doesn’t begin to cover what Sam means to him. He tightens his fist on a downstroke and grips the base and places a wet, open-mouthed kiss on the head of Sam’s cock.

Sam yelps in surprise. Dean looks up at Sam staring down at Dean and looking unbearably beautiful from this angle. His face is full of wonder. Dean holds his eyes as he opens his mouth wide enough that he can touch the tip with the tip of his tongue before closing his mouth sweetly over the head and sucking gently.

Sam sobs, head thrown back into the pillows now with a thump. Dean doesn’t let up, pulling off only to lick broad stripes up the sides of Sam’s still-small cock making Sam’s legs twitch around his body every time he passes the underside of the head of his cock.

“Dean-God-Dean” Sam is whimpering in turns, eyes closed and head thrown from side to side. 

_It’s okay,_ Dean thinks, mouth full of the taste of his little brother, _I’ve got you, I’ll take care of you_.

He pets a broad hand over Sam’s abdomen and picks up a rhythm that would make any grown man moan, but drives a thirteen-year-old totally and utterly boneless as he takes everything that Dean gives him.

Dean finally releases his grip on the kid and Sam’s hips hump up into Dean’s mouth until he’s completely buried inside of him, and Dean cherishes the feeling of Sam jerking at the back of his throat, every pulse of his over-stimulated cock accompanied by a stilted moan that sounds as much like a sob as anything else.

Dean feels the haze fading as Sam comes down, he feels his own terribly big emotions shrink as the feeling of Sam inside of his mouth suddenly feels different. Dean circles his tongue over the head of Sam’s cock one more time before he lets it fall from his mouth, looking even smaller now against Sam’s heaving tummy. 

Dean is harder than he can ever remember being. It hurts.

He’s starting to catch up… to the fact that he just took his brother in his hand and mouth and did things that Sam had never done except with another full-grown man… another person taking parts of Sam they had no right to...

Sam doesn’t seem to be having any trouble. He’s looking up at Dean with an expression of adoration that Dean remembers from when Sam was a kid, whenever Dean would surprise Sam with ice-cream cones or trips to the local museum.

Except now he’s wearing that expression along with the shiny slick of Dean’s spit on his cock, small body coming down from the high much slower than Dean’s brain.

Dean can’t look. He closes his eyes and rests his cheek against Sam’s hip. Sam’s hands pet clumsily at Dean’s hair, and his stomach suddenly feels baby-soft under his stroking thumbs. Sam tries to sit up, but Dean’s hand is firm. He doesn’t want to hold him down, he just… he just can’t… not yet.

“Dean?” he says in a small, unsure voice… childish… and that confirms everything Dean had been forgetting somewhere between his brother being raped and waking up with his name on his lips and the ghost of his hands on his neck. 

_Child_ suddenly forces its way into his brain, _He’s a fucking child._

Dean sits up and looks down at the sight before him. Sam still softening against his stomach. A dark red blush spreading from Sam’s cheeks to his chest. His hair mussed and his eyes brimming with helpless tears and love.

_Look what you did,_ comes a second, nastier voice.

All at once, Sam sits up and tries to kiss him. Dean turns just in time and Sam only kisses the corner of his mouth.

The next thing Dean registers is the bathroom door closing and the sudden flash of harsh lights. He’s yanking his sweatpants down just enough to get a punishing grip on his traitorously hard dick.

He stares at himself as he starts a violent rhythm that brings more pain that satisfaction, but it’s perfect. What he deserves.

The image of his fingers around Sam’s neck come to him then, unbidden, but familiar, and he comes with a violent cry. He uncoils like a shot, violent and sudden, his come hitting the kitchen sink in long white stripes. 

He thinks he can hear the sound of soft footsteps stopping just on the other side of the door over the sound of the buzzing in his ears, wringing out one last drop of come with a harsh tug.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (week after your) Birthday Sammyatstanford. I'll make sure to publish the next chapter before your next birthday. Thank god someone in the world is keeping me honest about this fic.

“Dean?”

Dean’s grip on the ceramic sink slips. He stares at himself in the mirror, the mess in the sink. He can’t move, can’t breathe. Oh god, oh God, _oh God_.

“Dean!”

The banging on the door rattles him out of his paralysis.

“What’s going on, Dean?”

The shame and the crippling guilt had been almost too much to comprehend, but the sound of that voice on the other side of the door brings it all into startling clarity. Dean feels like it’s going to kill him.

“One second, Dad!” Dean calls out. His voice sounds weak. He sounds wrong.

He sees that he’s cleaning the mess in the sink with a wad of toilet paper but his brain is with Sam, in his bed, naked, covered in his own mess. He can’t see anything else. He can only see what he did. And his father on the other side of that door, waiting for him, no idea that he’s so close to the scene of his crime.

“You sick, son?” his father’s voice is softer. His words are clear, sober, and concerned.

_You have no idea,_ Dean thinks.

“No, I’m-” Dean doesn’t know how to make his throat work, “I’m fine, Dad.”

He had known. The Doctor. The monster. He had known Dean would do this.

_Just something for you to think about when you inevitably get around to doing the same._

He was right. Dean had done exactly what he had expected. He had violated him just the same. No. Worse. Sam trusted him. Sam let him. Dean had taken that trust and tried to fix something that he had broken in the first place only to burn what little was left to the ground. Ripped the foundation out of the dirt. He didn’t know how to move on from this. Didn’t know who he was supposed to be after this.

He flushes the soiled tissue in the toilet. He tries to get a hold of his expression, but he doesn’t know how. He can’t even begin.

He opens the door.

His father is actually in pajamas for once, tired but alert, and the light from the bathroom falls on his face in a way that makes him look older.

“You throw up?” he asks.

Dean shakes his head. His door is ajar at the end of the hallway, dark and silent, Sam must be able to hear every word. They’re standing directly in front of Sam’s empty bedroom. The door closed, no body in the bed behind it.

“Heard you run into the bathroom, heard you gasping,” his father says quietly, and Dean studies his face but doesn’t see any suspicion, doesn’t see any scrutiny, just quiet concern.

“No,” Dean says, and the lie is given to him so easily. He doesn’t deserve it. He should drop to his father’s feet and apologize for everything he’s done, everything he’s ruined. But instead he just rides the lie, “Thought I was going to… but I didn’t.”

John nods, looking Dean up and down, “You’re sweating too… you stay home tomorrow if you need to, son.”

“I will,” Dean says, and he should turn away, but he has the distinct fear that if he leaves his father here, he’ll turn to Sam’s room, be able to sense that something is wrong. Dean can’t believe he can’t feel it already.

It’s because the man trusts him, takes him at his word, put Sam in his arms to protect when he was only four years old and has every day since.

God, what has he done?

“Really, Dad,” Dean says, “I’m fine. I’ll grab a barf bucket if it will make you feel better.”

His Dad’s face softens, the closest thing they get to smiling these days, and he turns back towards his room. “Feel better,” he says, muffled by a stifled yawn.

His father makes his way towards his bedroom and Dean feels his body draining of adrenaline. His head goes fuzzy. His eyes cloud over and the relief almost over takes him, only to be replaced by the rapid grief, but then-

“Check on your brother,” his father says, hand on his door.

Dean feels like he’s going to strain something in his attempt to keep his expression perfectly neutral. The adrenaline rushes back into his brain, pumping through his body as his father stares at him down the narrow hallway, a hand on his own doorknob.

Dean turns towards Sam’s door, between his and his father’s, he turns the knob silently with his heart hammering in his chest.

Dean stares at Sam’s empty bed where Sam should be safe and sound. He wishes he could will Sam back into his bed, unhurt and untouched. He wished he could take it all back, every touch, but instead he just stares into the empty bedroom, the ghost of what his brother was before Dean touched him mocking him while his fathers watching eyes feel like accusation.

For a heartbeat, he thinks he’s going to tell him. He doesn’t believe he’ll be able to lie. He thinks he’s going to break down right there, collapse and just let his father work out what happened when he sees Sam’s empty room and goes looking for him. But when he turns towards his father, his eyes tired but trusting and patient, Dean just gives a quick nod, unable to meet his father’s eyes, before closing the door silently, like he’s afraid to wake up his sleeping brother.

John nods too, steps into his room, and that’s that.

Dean turns the light off in the bathroom. He makes his way blindly towards his room. When he is standing in the door frame, he can just make out the shape of Sam sitting up in his bed, his skin a faint glow in the black, and the tension and fear in his posture so heavy Dean can feel it in the air he’s dragging into his lungs.

He closes the door quickly behind him, and he’s terrified to go back to that bed but he doesn’t know if his legs will hold him much longer. He can’t stop shaking after he hears the door click shut, even when he takes the heavy steps towards his bed, towards Sam.

Dean slides into bed, feels the way that Sam clings at him, the way he can now hear his rapid barely their breaths.

“Sammy,” Dean breathes, doesn’t dare to speak up anymore. His whole body trembles under Sam’s touch.

“Don’t,” Sam says too loudly. The sound makes him flinch. Sam pulls at him more insistently until he’s curled against Dean’s chest, his forehead pressed against Dean’s throat and his knees tucked up towards Dean’s stomach. He’s shaking, whether with fear or tears Dean doesn’t know.

“Sammy,” his voice breaks on the word, “Please, I can’t-”

“Please, Dean,” Sam’s grip tightens, “Don’t make me leave.”

There’s a silence that stretches unbearably, Sam presses his forehead harder into his brother’s skin and Dean feels his breath come faster, so scared to be rejected.

“Okay,” Dean says, and the feeling of Sam’s breath of relief makes him shiver, “Okay, Sammy.”

Sam relaxes minutely. Dean can’t, but he reaches out to wrap his arms around Sam’s naked back anyways, too focused on the way that Sam’s skin warms under his touch. His thumb rubs back and forth against his skin, and Dean hates himself for it, that even now he wants to touch, wants to comfort and soothe after he destroyed any right he had to it.

“I'm so sorry,” Dean can’t hold it in any longer, can’t keep the sorrow out of his voice, “Sam, I’m so…”

Sam presses closer, his head nodding a fraction. He doesn’t say a word.

“I’ll never…” Dean swallows past the pain in his throat, needs to be clear, needs Sam to know, “Sam, I’ll never hurt you again.”

Sam doesn’t move.

“Don’t let me hurt you again.”

Sam is so still in his arms, and he doesn’t know what it means.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

They stay in the house where it happened for almost a month before they are alone again. Their Dad gets a job locally with his real name, and they have a decent amount of cash for once. He spends a lot of time with them just because he can’t find any local hunts or anything urgent enough for them to move on.

Sam avoids Dean. He ignores him at breakfast. He stays late after school until he knows their father will be there for dinner. He comes home with a plausible excuse every day. No more lies. He was at his friends house. He was at the library. He got invited to a pick-up basketball game. He wanted to check out a town-hall meeting for his government class.

And Dean is too cowardly to seek any kind of privacy. The memory comes back to him like a punch to the gut, makes him lose his breath and forget where he is while a slideshow of terribly clear pictures make him want to throw up or throw a punch. 

Sam stops coming to his bed, and even though he only ever came to him in pain, in tears, in need, Dean still misses the feeling of him in his arms.

He hates himself for it.

It’s not until weeks later, when Dean is called out of class with a phone call from his father, that Dean realizes he’ll have a second alone with his brother. His father is leaving work early, heard about a job only a couple hours away, gonna help a hunter take out a poltergeist and that Dean doesn’t need to come.

Dean hangs up the phone and tries to compose himself. He has a plan, had one since the night it happened. Not because it happened, but because the only silver lining of what he had done to Sam and what had come between them was that Sam knew that he knew.

The hours it takes for Sam to come home from whatever engagement he’s scrounged up that day drag on as Dean tries to distract himself. He cooks dinner in a daze, going over the words in his head over and over again even though he knows he’ll stumble when he has to say it to Sam’s face.

He has a pot boiling and red sauce in their only two pans with meatballs in the oven, luxuries that they’re only allowed because their father has been forced to work for so much longer than he normally has to, when he hears Sam walk in.

Dean hears Sam moving closer to the door, imagines him stalling because he must have noticed that Dad’s truck isn’t there. Dean just stirs the sauce slowly, letting Sam come to him because it’s the first time in a while that he doesn’t have a choice.

“Where’s Dad,” Sam says, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

“On a hunt, close by, he’ll be back in a couple of days,” Dean says trying to sound composed.

Sam doesn’t say anything, but Dean feels the tension rise once Sam’s sure that they’re going to be alone. The last time they were on their own Sam still had bruises healing under his skin. The last time they’d been in a room alone Dean had ruined everything.

Sam must sense that something is coming, because instead of going to his room and closing the door, barring himself from Dean until he absolutely must face him, he sits at the kitchen table, back towards Dean at the stove.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Sam says, “I don’t want anymore apologies, just can we forget it happened?”

Dean feels his heart spasm at the words. The memory comes to him, unbidden, all hours of the day, and every time it takes incredible effort to keep himself from letting those terribly big emotions manifest themselves fully. He remembers what Sam tastes like and wants to punch something. He remembers the noises Sam made and he wants to shut his ears and scream. He remembers the feel of Sam’s delicate neck between his fingers and-

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Dean says, relieved he has something that is going to chase that memory out of his brain temporarily… but then he hesitates, “Not unless you want to.”

“I don’t.” Sam’s voice is sharp.

Dean pauses. Knows that what he’s going to say is going to get an even stronger reaction out of Sam, make him even angrier, but he needs to say it. They can’t let what happened between them keep them from addressing what started all of this. Or what Dean convinces himself was the start of all this.

“Why didn’t you want to go to the police after it happened?” Dean asks, knowing that Sam will know what he’s talking about, “Why didn’t you want me to help?”

Sam gets very quiet, and Dean thinks he can see the way that Sam’s posture drops.

“Dean, stop,” Sam says quietly. His voice betrays him, he sounds scared, “Let’s not do this, okay?”

“Because if he-” Dean can’t even think of the right way to phrase this, but he plows on, “If he threatened to tell me… if he tried to use it against you… I know now, okay?”

Sam lets out a sharp breath and his fingers flex on the table. Dean can’t let the fact that this is causing his brother more pain stop him, because this is the only thing that is getting him through this. They can make this part right, even if the rest of it is all wrong.

“If you didn’t want to get help because you knew I’d find out-” Sam shoves his chair back and stands up.

Dean is struck silent for a moment when Sam starts stalking out of the room, but Dean can’t let him leave. He’s said it and he can’t let this go on, “Sam, that’s over now. I know and that shouldn’t stand in your way anymore,” Dean says following behind him into the TV room. He’s talking to Sam’s retreating back and he can’t help but speak with more force now, “You don’t have to keep it a secret anymore. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sam stops dead, spinning on his heel to stare at Dean. Sam’s eyebrows are knitted together in fury but there’s so much more emotion in his eyes that doesn’t match. Dean doesn’t know how to read it, just lets it startle him into stillness.

Sam shakes his head, “It’s too late.”

“It’s not!” Dean feels desperate, and he takes a step towards Sam then, even though he’d rather kneel at his feet and beg, “It’s not too late. We can make this right.”

Sam’s laugh is harsh, “Oh yeah?”

Dean wants to kick himself, “I don’t mean that… I mean we can make it better. Do what we can.”

Dean's hand comes halfway up towards Sam, not knowing where he wants to put it but needing to reach out to Sam.

“We can’t do anything! We barely could have after it happened, Dean… you think it’s any good now?” Sam says.

“Yeah, I do!” Dean snaps, “There’s nothing holding us back now!”

Sam shakes his head, a bitter smile on his face.

“You just want revenge. But guess what!” Sam says with a desperately sad knowing smile, “It’s not yours to take okay. This isn’t about you.”

It is though, Dean thinks, and he knows that Sam knows it too, It always has been.

“I don’t care.”

Dean says it with enough defiance that Sam’s eyes widen and he doesn’t speak at first.

“I don’t care if it isn’t about me, Sam,” Dean says, “Because you may be able to separate your shit from me, but I can’t. I can’t do that, alright?” Dean’s tries to keep his voice steady, “I can’t stop taking care of you.”

Sam crosses his arms and refuses to meet Dean’s eyes. Dean feels a rush of something like embarrassment, but it’s not like this is a fucking secret. It’s not like anyone could ever look at them for more than five minutes without knowing how much Dean needed Sam, and how much Dean needed Sam to need him.

“Listen… kid…,” Dean says in a pleading voice, “I can’t live with myself as it is for everything that’s happened to you, and if the one thing I can do is get that pervert behind bars, then I’m gonna fucking do it.”

Dean turns away from them and for the first time in months, he feels an ounce of purpose. He feels like he knows the next step, and he knows that it’s right. His feet carry him up the stairs and he feels like the coil in his chest, crushing his heart, loosens just by a fraction. It’s enough.

“Dean?” Sam asks, from the bottom of the stairs, confused.

Dean goes into his room, ignores the immediate memory of what he did to Sam in that bed, and grabs his duffel out of his closet. Sam’s footsteps on the stairs are rapid, light, and he’s in the doorway too fast just as Dean starts unzipping the bag.

“What are you looking for?” Sam says a little breathlessly.

Sam’s voice makes something surface, an unease in Dean that he tries not to think about as he digs through his bag.

“You know what I’m looking for,” Dean mutters while he reaches the bottom of the bag finally.

“Dean…” Sam’s voice sounds small. Dean’s heart picks up.

Dean is running his hands around the bottom lining of the bag. Just dirty socks and the t-shirts they never wear. There’s the truth tugging at his brain, but he absolutely refuses to let it in yet. He keeps on looking for it.

“Dean,” Sam says again, his voice straining with something.

The fear in his voice makes Dean want to ignore him all the more. He won’t believe it. He starts yanking his clothing out of his duffel in fistfuls, once-folded shirts and spare bullet boxes and skin mags left in piles around him as he tries desperately not to believe it.

“Dean!” Sam finally grabs onto Dean’s arm and he stops, nothing left to do but let the truth crash in on him.

“You didn’t.” Dean says, praying to god that saying it could make it true. He’s looking at Sam and he feels the defeat and frustration so deep in his chest he feels like he’s drowning in it, letting it fill his lungs.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Sam says in the smallest voice, and he takes his hands off of Dean like he had forgotten he had done it.

“Sam,” Dean says, desperate, “Tell me you didn’t get rid of that camera.”

Sam takes a step back and Dean feels that heartache drop lower, starting a blistering ache in his stomach where the frustration transforms so smoothly into something close to rage.

“How could you…” his voice shakes like his knees as he begins to stand. Sam is retreating in earnest now, “That was the only thing… the ONLY thing!”

“It’s too late, Dean!” and he doesn’t sound angry, he looks scared. His eyes are wide and the guilt and fear are written all over his face, "I never wanted you to do that and I wanted to forget and it's _too late!_ “

Dean's chest hurts with how suddenly things have turned on him, how he's turned on himself.

“It isn’t! It wasn’t! Not until you- _God_ , Sam!” Dean makes a deliberate and violent motion towards Sam when he finally finds his feet and Sam jumps back, knocking into the wall and Dean can’t ignore it now.

He can’t ignore the satisfaction that it gives him to see Sam looking at him like that, afraid and vulnerable and helpless. He doesn’t know how long it’s been inside him. Maybe forever. He had always thought that he did this to Sam, but he was sure now. He just hadn’t seen it before. He’d always been sick over Sam, he just had never realized how deep the sickness went. How much it affected him.

Dean takes a careful step towards Sam and he feels something clicking into place when he makes the deliberate choice to relish the way Sam looks. Eyes wide with fear, narrow chest rising with each scared breath, pressing his body to the wall behind him.

It wasn’t about sex, it was about control. It wasn’t the violence that they needed, it was possession. It felt right that Sam was his. What’s worse is that Sam thinks this feels right too, despite the earnest fear in his eyes. This is what his sub-conscious had been feeding him, but worse. So much worse.

That’s what makes Dean take a step back.

Dean wonders if Doctor Wheston hadn’t brought it all to light, would they ever have gotten here? Would they ever have ever fit themselves together so perfectly, irreversibly, and terribly wrong? That man had broken Sam apart and then broken Dean open and showed him what he was inside, and now it was blooming with poisonous life.

He needed to kill that man, not because of what he did to Sam, but because of what he had made Dean realize about himself. It didn’t matter that Sam felt the way he did, the real revulsion was what it was doing to Dean and what it made Dean want to do to Sam.

He was going to kill him.

“Dean?”

He needed to kill him.

Dean went to their other bag, the violence his baby brother had woken up in him still seething under his skin. He didn’t think to be thankful for his new outlet as his brother seemed too frightened to move.

"I'm going to kill him."

The feeling of the cool metal of his favorite pistol did nothing to calm him. It only solidified the reality of what he needed. He needed to kill Doctor Wheston for himself, he understood that now.

“Don’t, Dean!” Sam says, visibly trying to regain his confidence. He was so shaken, still slumped against the wall, “Please, don’t do anything!"

"Why not, huh?" Dean snaps.

He looks up at Sam and weighs the familiar weight of the gun in his hand with the familiar sight of his brother in pain. Linked.

"Why the hell shouldn't I put a bullet in that fucker's brain?" Dean asks, each word clear and precise. “You don’t have any more excuses,” Dean says, the threat in his voice makes his blood pound in his head as he brings himself closer to Sam, “So why shouldn’t I?”

He steps towards Sam, and Sam doesn't press himself to the wall this time, he stands up straight and pushes himself off. Dean feels the violence shrink back in protest.

"Because you don't get to use him as an excuse," Sam says seriously.

"An excuse for what," Dean says. Sam is looking him straight in the eye now.

"An excuse to explain it all away, Dean," Sam says with a bitter smile, "You don't get to kill somebody and pretend that it solves a damn thing, and become a murderer on top of it.”

Dean latches onto the end of that like a lifeline, ”A little late on that one, Sam. Try again."

"It's not the same! He's a human with a wife and kids-"

" _You're a kid_!” Dean snaps, "he doesn't deserve to have a family. He doesn't deserve any of it!”

“This isn’t about him, and you know it!” Sam shouts.

Dean doesn’t dare to ask the question. What is it about? Sam seems to have a good idea, but Dean is too focused on his own needs to take stock of their motivations. 

"Killing him isn't going to make you feel any better, it's going to be dangerous to our family, to _me_ and it's not going to make me any better! I'm still going to be exactly as I am, I was before any of this started. It only happened because of the way I am-”

“Sam,” the words cool Dean’s blood and his throat closes in grief at those words.

“-and killing him won’t change the way that YOU are, Dean!”

Dean’s fingers tighten around the hilt of his gun.

“What is that supposed to mean…” Dean says quietly.

“You know what it means,” Sam says deadly serious, and even though he seems to make himself a little smaller at Dean’s tone, his words are clear, “I’m serious… I won’t let you do this.”

"How the hell are you supposed to stop me?” Dean asks his brother, grasping for that purpose he had had for a fleeting moment only minutes earlier. 

The look that Sam gives him then is familiar, pain and resilience mixed up in his expression, but so determined.

“I’ll tell him,” Sam says, quiet and steady defiance in his voice.

Dean stalls, “Tell who what?”

“I’ll tell Dad what happened,” Sam says, voice full of resolve now, “I’ll tell him what you did to me.”

Dean pales, knows that he’s betraying every emotion with his eyes, because what is he supposed to say to that? Sam _should_ tell his father. Their father should know every single thing that has come into Sam’s life and torn him apart from the inside out. John should know every single boundary that Dean crossed and how good it had felt.

He really looks at Sam then, and he knows that saying that hurts Sam as much as it hurts Dean. More than anything that is what beats back the heat in Dean’s veins. There’s nothing in their lives that they’d rather do less than hurt each other, and here Sam was with a threat that would top it all.

Dean hears the sound of the metal thud of his gun hitting the floor through the buzzing in his head. Sam keeps an eye on him, moves slowly towards it while Dean stumbles backwards until his knees hit the bed and he sinks down.

“Sammy, what can I do?” Dean begs. He looks to Sam who empties the barrel of the gun with steady fingers, his mouth a grim line. Dean drops his head into his trembling hands, “You gotta… I’m dying here… I don’t know how to make it right, any of it, especially what I…”

“You can forget about it,” Sam says with too much composure, “All of it. You can’t fix it, so let’s just…”

“Forget?” Dean forces the word out.

“Yeah,” Sam says resolutely, “We can forget it. If you want to do something for me, then don’t make me remember it every damn day with your stupid sorry eyes.”

Dean doesn’t know if Sam is talking about remembering Wheston or remembering what he did to Sam, but neither seem like things that are going to be easily removed from his memories in daylight or his nightmares in the dark. 

“You can forget about this?” Dean asks, looking up then. Sam’s face is unreadable, his expression steady. “All of it?”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Sam asks, “Just try for me… It’s the least you can do.” Dean shakes his head in disbelief. Can’t believe that Sam can be so calm about this while it’s shaking him to his core. 

“Come eat, dinner’s probably burning,” Sam says in the doorway, and then he’s walking out and down the stairs.

Dean doesn’t get up, doesn't go downstairs. He let’s himself collapse onto his bed, contemplating what Sam is asking him to do. 

He doesn’t forget, neither of them do, but they pretend to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so as awful as I've been about this fic ^ I've actually been writing a lot of other stuff that I have felt too guilty to post.
> 
> So basically, this is a disclaimer saying that I WILL finish this story, but you might see some other stuff getting posted between now and then.


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